Recycled Plastics Market Begins to Stabilize
by Haley Paul
Published on June 26th, 2009
3 Comments
It is no secret that the last two months of 2008 and the first two months of 2009 were especially trying times for industries across the economic spectrum.
What many may not realize, however, is that the recycling industry—which has steadily grown over its 30-year lifespan—was hit hard by the economic downturn as well.
Materials such as plastic pile up at warehouses, causing surpluses that drive down prices for recycled goods. Photo: Telegraph.co.uk
As domestic recyclables in the U.S. continued to provide a relatively constant supply, demand decreased from China.
At one point during the most prominent part of the downturn, boatloads of recycled goods were stalled in Chinese harbors because of the lowered demand.
Currently, inventories in recycling warehouses remain high, and many managers do not want to accept more supply until the market picks back up again.
Some municipalities are even recognizing the drop in recycling commodity prices and offering suggestions for what to do about it.
The North Shore Recycling Program of North Vancouver, British Columbia, suggests that citizens continue to recycle, but do all that they can to help alleviate the need for recycling companies to stockpile materials in warehouses by reducing their waste as much as possible and by reusing all possible materials.
Recycling industry representatives suggest that the tide is turning, with export demand building up slowly and domestic demand finally stabilizing. And unlike other sectors of the economy, most recycling companies seem to have weathered the rough times and stayed in business.
Reasons for optimism and potential growth in the recycling industry include:
- Corporate sustainability programs are on the rise, with interests in cradle-to-cradle recycling and landfill avoidance strategies.
- New technologies are being developed that better recover the polymers from plastics.
- Electronic equipment recycling continues to increase, with manufacturers leading the way in identifying and separating reclaimable materials.
- Recycled plastics stay in demand because they do a better job for less money than other materials.
Trey Granger
posted on June 26th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
I would compare the current recyclables market to that Hollywood writer’s strike a few years ago. The industry was smart and stockpiled a bunch of scripts and projects, so when the strike ended there was no halt in production while the writers caught up. If we stop recycling because there’s less demand for it right now, we won’t have the supply later to make new products.
Recycled Plastics Market Begins to Stabilize
posted on June 28th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
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Blair Pollock
posted on June 29th, 2009 at 9:18 am
Thanks for taking time to write these columns. In North Carolina a partnership of two industries carpet and PET fiber is completing a $50MM plant in Fayetteville NC that will employ 100 and convert 5 billion old PET bottles per year, 80% to fiber and 20% commodity plastic. More domestic efforts like this will be the way to GROW our plastic demand and in conjunction w/ that, NC is banning plastic bottles from the landfill as of October 1, 2009. So here’s where demand and supply could meet ‘helped’ by this new law, which was passed in 2005 to take effect this year!