Recycling prices and market commentary: 8 November 2019

November 8, 2019

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The recovered fibre market slumped again this week, in what is proving to be a very difficult market for recycled paper.

OCC, mixed and news & pam all saw price falls (more below on this).

Packaging plastic grades were boosted by an increased PRN/PERN price plus some more demand for LDPE.

Copper grades were the only movers in metals, gaining on last week.

The pound was a touch lower at $1.28 from $1.29 last week against the dollar. There was no change against the euro at €1.16.

Recycled plastics

With the PRN/PERN value gaining an additional £40 or so on last week, this helped to push up the price of packaging grades.

Some additional demand in the market also helped LDPE too.

Bottle grades gained just £20 with demand good but slightly subdued.

Films grades saw a wide spread for 98/2 in particular. UK buyers were reluctant to compete with the prices paid by those in Europe, and they relied on existing relationships as a result.

Forecast prices

	1-week	4-week
PET	351-357	360-366
HDPE	652-658	670-676
LDPE 98/2	549-555	566-572

Recycled paper

Times are really tough in the recovered fibre market at present.

OCC dropped to a range of £25 to £35 this week, and not much material was moving, even at these low prices.

Mixed also fell with downward pressure from OCC, but good demand from Europe helped to keep this grade just below £20 per tonne. The spread between mixed and OCC is really quite narrow.

News & pam, which has been relatively resilient recently, also fell losing £10 per tonne this week.

Optimism is in short supply at the moment in the recovered fibre market, with many not expecting any improvement before Christmas. If anything, they expect things to get worse.

Forecast prices

	1-week	4-week
OCC	24-28	25-29
ONP	56-60	56-60
Mixed	16-20	16-20

Recycled metals

Copper grades were the only ones to see any price movement this week, rising by £50 per tonne.