Recycling Market Commentary and Prices: 25 May 2018

This week saw some upwards movement in the price of certain recyclable plastics grades, and a slight cooling of OCC.

PET, HDPE and LDPE all increased in price, while OCC dropped a touch.

Recent good weather appears to have helped with arisings, and for paper traders the material is also dry helping its quality.

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The pound continues to slide against the dollar and was at $1.33 this week, down from $1.34 a week ago. However, six weeks ago the pound was trading at $1.42, so for exporters this has been a significant discount.

Against the euro, the pound was pretty much unchanged at €1.14 this week.

A factor that may affect exporters as the weeks go on is that the rising oil price has led to shipping companies increasing container charges to China by over $100 for June. Other destinations are also seeing container price rise.

One interesting development is that material is now moving from the US to China despite it supposedly being banned until 4 June. This is because CCIC Canada has been authorised to conduct US inspections. As a result, allowed material is now being shipped from the US to China. But don’t forget, US material is subject to 100% container inspections and that will remain the case after 4 June.

Plastics

Price rises have been seen this week for PET, HDPE and LDPE following rising virgin prices. In turn this has led to stronger scrap plastic prices too.

For PET, another £20 can be gained this week, although there is already a sense that prices may have reached their limit in the virgin market, so further gains may be limited in the secondary market in the coming weeks.

The announcement that China will accept high grade recycled PET into the country without a licence will also help the market.

Primary HDPE and LDPE prices have also increased, and again, this has helped the secondary price to increase for these grades too (by £30 per tonne for each). Although in the case of LDPE, this is only for the highest quality material.

However, for film grades, backlogs of material at Vietnamese and Malaysian ports could halt any further increases, and could even put prices into reverse if exports slow.

Paper

Demand from Chinese buyers has eased slightly this week as targets for May appeared to have been met in previous weeks.

Although their purchasing prices only came down by £2 to £4, it did take the edge off the market, and they were still paying up to £150 per tonne in some circumstances. As ever, this was for the very best quality material.

Indian buyers were at the bottom of the market offering anywhere from £60 per tonne upwards (in some circumstances that was a price point designed to show they were not hugely interested in buying), while European and UK mills were around £70 to £80 and other Asian destinations a bit higher than this.

As mentioned above, the US is now able to ship material, and while there will be delays at the ports, the expectation is that June will bring more price conversion as Chinese buying prices drop back a bit (aided by the increased shipping costs too). There is also a view that other destinations will catch up a bit as buying needs increase in June.

News and pam and mixed paper saw no price changes this week.

Metals

Stainless steel grades saw an increase of £50 per tonne this week on the back of more demand.

Aluminium cans have also increased by £50 per tonne as more market participants want material, although there doesn’t appear to be too much more upside on the way unless the LME aluminium price changes dramatically.

Other metal grades were stable.

Prices

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UK plastic bottles

UK HDPE, Wheelie Bins, HIPS, EPS, PP

UK LDPE film

UK pots, tubs, trays

UK OCC, ONP, Mixed paper

UK soft mixed, OIN, SOW

UK Multi, WHL, BW2

UK copper

UK brass

UK aluminium alloys

UK aluminum

UK stainless steel, zinc, lead

UK ferrous

UK engines, cans, plugs

UK glass

PRN paper, plastic, glass

PRNs wood, steel, alu, recovery

UK gate fees, RDF, landfill

UK Gate Fees - EFW, AD, MRF

China plastics

China paper

China metals

US plastics

US paper

US metals