Hyundai L&C is stepping up its drive to become an eco-friendly, comprehensive building-materials company.
Following its silk wallpaper earning a Grade 1 rating under the European textile product quality certification, its furniture film has also become the first in Korea to obtain ‘GRS (Global Recycle Standard) certification.’ Furniture film is a surface finishing material applied to the surface of plywood, a furniture substrate, and is mainly used for kitchen sinks, wardrobes, and desks.
Hyundai L&C, a comprehensive building-materials company affiliated with Hyundai Department Store Group, announced that its in-house developed furniture film ‘Glossia’ has obtained ‘GRS certification’ from ‘Control Union,’ a global eco-friendly certification body.
‘Control Union’ is a global eco-friendly certification body headquartered in the Netherlands, providing global certification and inspection services in agriculture, textiles, biofuels, forestry, fisheries, cosmetics, and more through some 120 branches across 70 countries worldwide.
The ‘GRS certification’ obtained by Hyundai L&C is granted to products for which the recycled-fiber content can be traced at each stage of production, from the raw materials of eco-friendly recycled fibers through to the finished product. To obtain it, a product’s material must contain at least 20% or more recycled content.
Hyundai L&C’s ‘Glossia’ is composed of 90% PET (Polyethylene Terephthalate) and 10% other materials such as pigments and UV coating, and approximately 77.8% of the total PET material is recycled PET.
PET is a material commonly used for bottled water and beverage containers, and is known to be more eco-friendly than ‘PVC (Polyvinyl chloride),’ which has traditionally been widely used in household film. Through a year of collaboration with its partner ‘Daeyang Polymer,’ Hyundai L&C secured the technology to recycle PET material containing impurities early this year.
A Hyundai L&C official said, “The recycled PET content used in Glossia is the highest level in the world among furniture films currently on the market,” adding, “Our goal is to use recycled PET for all of the PET used to make Glossia.”
With this GRS certification, Hyundai L&C expects its competitiveness in the global ‘furniture film market’ to be further strengthened. This is because demand for eco-friendly furniture film is growing as more furniture companies increasingly seek to use only recycled and eco-friendly materials. In fact, Hyundai L&C is reportedly receiving a steady stream of supply inquiries about eco-friendly furniture film from renowned furniture companies in Korea and Europe.
In particular, ‘Glossia,’ the furniture film developed by Hyundai L&C, is also expected to help raise Korea’s recycling rate of waste PET bottles. Hyundai L&C uses, for all of the recycled PET material in ‘Glossia,’ only waste PET bottles generated within Korea. A company official explained, “If ‘Glossia’ is applied and installed throughout the kitchen and general furniture of an apartment with an exclusive floor area of 84㎡ (32 pyeong), about 1,300 waste PET bottles (500㎖ basis) will be recycled,” adding, “Converted to an annual basis, this has the effect of recycling about 97 million waste PET bottles (500㎖ basis).”
Earlier, in January, Hyundai L&C obtained Grade 1 (Baby Class), the highest grade of the ‘European textile product quality certification (OEKO-TEX® STANDARD 100),’ for some 230 varieties of its two silk wallpaper products, ‘Q’PID’ and ‘Q’UBE.’ The European textile product quality certification is an eco-friendly certification administered by the OEKO-TEX® Association, a body comprising 18 textile research institutes in Europe, Japan, and elsewhere, that evaluates the harmlessness of products that come into contact with the skin, such as clothing, bedding, toys, and interior materials.
A Hyundai L&C official said, “In recent years we have focused on developing products that combine both functionality and eco-friendliness, such as engineered stone, silk wallpaper, and household film,” adding, “Going forward, we will continue to develop products that contribute to resource circulation and are environmentally friendly, and lead the eco-friendly comprehensive building-materials market.”