Please note this report just focuses on the waste polymers of ethylene commodity code (391510), as exports of other plastics are relatively small in volume
Exports of PE-based recyclable plastics were almost identical in December compared to November.
December 2020 saw 27,923 tonnes exported, just a tiny bit more than November’s 27,854 tonnes.
Turkey took the most, with buyers there perhaps aware of the need to stock up ahead of the country’s import restrictions that came in on 1 January. This was a significant increase on 5,972 tonnes exported to Turkey in November and was actually the best ever month since we started collecting this data in 2013.
The entirety of the EU was the next best destination with 9,309 tonnes up on November’s 5,965 tonnes.
Poland was strongly back in the market in December with 3,843 tonnes after just buying 367 tonnes in the previous month.
Following there was the Netherlands with 1,823 tonnes, up from 1,291 tonnes.
Belgium was the only other EU destination importing more than 1,000 tonnes with it taking 1,007 tonnes, which was an increase on November’s 777 tonnes.
After the EU, Malaysia was the only other significant global destination with UK exports to there up to 5,078 tonnes in December, compared to 4,087 tonnes in the preceding month.
PE key destinations (391510)
| wdt_ID | Date | China | Malaysia | Vietnam | EU total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 01/12/2017 | 1,593,325 | 8,154,599 | 5,185,643 | 2,356,480 |
| 2 | 01/11/2017 | 1,340,655 | 11,929,056 | 8,441,914 | 5,064,111 |
| 3 | 01/10/2017 | 3,937,218 | 8,448,893 | 9,224,031 | 6,378,656 |
| 4 | 01/09/2017 | 6,735,842 | 8,836,402 | 6,965,057 | 6,021,468 |
| 5 | 01/08/2017 | 12,986,863 | 8,042,469 | 4,297,452 | 6,436,902 |
| 6 | 01/07/2017 | 14,879,464 | 6,984,245 | 2,828,813 | 1,917,806 |
| 7 | 01/06/2017 | 13,836,510 | 5,912,876 | 3,276,369 | 6,344,826 |
| 8 | 01/05/2017 | 10,244,233 | 6,634,566 | 2,371,000 | 5,126,138 |
| 9 | 01/04/2017 | 16,314,413 | 5,812,466 | 1,722,387 | 3,563,463 |
| 10 | 01/03/2017 | 20,367,409 | 2,720,115 | 1,448,964 | 4,328,398 |
Full historic export data
