Waste glass from Samsung Display to be reused into cement for new HQ

A rendering of Samsung Display Co.‘s new head building scheduled to be completed in the second half of 2024 [Photo provided by Samsung Display]

Samsung Display Co. said on Thursday that it will be using recycled cement made from waste glass produced during its display production process for the construction of its new head building, which is scheduled to be completed in the second half of 2024.

About 20,000 tons of cement with recycled glass, which accounts for about 34 percent of the total cement needed for the construction, will be used in the project.

With growing social interest in preserving sand resources, which are the main raw material for glass production, many companies are focusing on recycling waste glass that is inevitably generated in industrial sites.

Samsung Display has been recycling waste glass from its display manufacturing process into cement since 2008 and has been recycling all of it since 2016. The total amount of glass recycled by Samsung Display to date has reached 245,000 tons.

Producing one ton of glass usually requires about 0.8 tons of sand and the 245,000 tons of recycled glass means that the company has saved enough sand to create a white sand beach comparable to Busan Haeundae Beach, according to Samsung Display.

Efficiency in the recycling of waste glass generated by Samsung Display is expected to increase in the future with more outputs of flexible OLED panels as there is less contamination left in the waste glass compared to LCD panels.

The waste material from the panel attachment glass, called carrier glass, used in the production of flexible OLEDs, is being increasingly recycled in high-value-added fields such as glass fiber.