Sometimes strange things happen in the recycling market, and this week was one of them for plastic PRN and PERNs.
The activity of what was believed to be one buyer of plastic PRNs confused the entire market as there didn’t seem to be a huge amount of logic to it. It didn’t have a big impact on physical prices though. More on this below.
Otherwise, some cardboard and paper grades saw a small increase, but metals were relatively steady.
The pound dropped a cent from last week to $1.26 and the same with the euro to €1.16.
Recycled plastics
As mentioned at the top, it is believed the actions of one buyers of PRNs created a lot of confusion this week.
With the market having been stable for all of February, they suddenly piled in snapping up everything they could get and even pushing up the price for themself. The reason why they did this wasn’t exactly clear, but they must have had reason.
While some initially responded, as prices increase, these backed out. It is now the case that those trading plastic PRNs or PERNs don’t really know the true market price at the moment so are waiting to see where it settles.
For packaging grades, the price of these didn’t respond to the PRN/PERN change to the same degree. This meant there was typically a £10 increase in value, which was equivalent to what seems to have been the underlying change to the PRN/PERN price.
Recycled paper
Demand from South East Asia and a lack of material available helped to drive up prices of OCC and mixed paper this week.
Other regions were noticeable by their absence as they either waited to see if this was a pattern, felt the UK was too expensive, or had stocked up earlier.
Many were scrabbling around looking for material to see as prices rose, but it was really hard finding it.
Pricing in the deink sector is stable. Demand for tissue grades are in low demand in the UK at the moment, reflecting low demand in Europe.
Recycled metals
After price rises in recent weeks, copper and brass came down by £50 per tonne. Ferrous grades also lost £10 per tonne.
Recycling prices
For recycled paper prices, click here
For recycled plastic prices, click here
For recycled metal prices, click here
For recycled glass prices, click here
For PRN/PERN prices, click here
