Q&A

Recycling Insights

The recycling industry has been tackling the root problem of linear consumption with increasing momentum. Policymakers and players, both locally and globally, have been promoting the reuse of resources by improving waste management systems and enforcing legislation that financially incentivises recycling. It has not all been smooth sailing for the industry. In 2017, China ceased importing recycled materials due to large amounts deemed as biohazardous or too dirty. With China being the largest importer of these commodities, consumer market prices soared. Structural changes to the global supply chains have forced the developed world to invest in processing facilities, such as new paper mills, and redomesticate production This consequence has the desirable effect of pushing for a circular economy. An endless cycle of diverting recyclables from landfill and producing a new use for them, in order to expand their life cycle is the ultimate solution.

Covid’s impact on the market prices of recycling materials

According to Paul Sanderson, When COVID hit, everybody panicked but new patterns were quickly established. In some European countries, everything was stopped apart from absolutely essential services. At first, It was decided that recycling waste wasn’t an essential service. However, in the UK, we took a different approach and decided that recycling waste was an essential service. So recycling bins were still getting collected here and the material was still

Being Recycled

He further shared his perspective on Europe and Asia. These places had banned collections, and the mills and recycling facilities were still open, so they were still trying to make the packaging. The UK was seen as a great place to buy from because we had material available. People were buying stuff, so market prices went really high. He claimed that the UK has gone higher recently across the board because the rest of the world realised, whether it was food or medicine bottles, they needed to keep global supply chains working because they’ve become so reliant on recycled materials. He concluded this topic by stating that the COVID period was a good time for the recycling industry in terms of market prices for recycled commodities. All the packaging from online orders was certainly getting recycled. Cardboard is a really easy material to recycle, so the fact that there was so much around was very good It’s quick to recycle and it’s simple

Factors affecting the market in 2023

Sanderson’s expertise states that energy will affect the recycling market next year. A lot of recycling facilities are big energy users, so whether it’s a paper mill or a metal smelter, it needs a huge amount of energy. The UK is facing huge energy costs because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Therefore, energy is going to be the biggest one. He thinks that there won’t be anything similar to China bans in the near future. Other countries like Vietnam, China, to some degree, and the United States are developing circular economies. With new legislation and proposals, the secular economy is going to get even bigger in 2023 Anything can happen, as seen with COVID and the Ukraine war It’s always events that have the biggest influence on any sort of market. He further shares the correlation between energy prices and recycled materials:

Paul Sanderson

"We have started to see prices coming down because of the higher energy costs. There’s less material around as well and less demand for material because people are buying less stuff because they’re scared. Even with the energy cap in the UK, it is still double what it was a year ago for people to pay their energy bills. It means people are buying less on Amazon, in shops, and going out to eat less.”

Paul Sanderson’s take on China

He predicts that China won’t be loosening its ban completely. They ran out of metals, so they had no choice but to loosen their restrictions. With China’s Belt and Road policy, the idea is that they are expanding their influence to nations within reach We have seen huge investments by Chinese companies in Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Myanmar, who have built paper mills there. Instead of material going to China, it now goes to those countries and then goes to China. With plastics, the Basel Convention has brought in some more rules on international trade. We tend to see more plastic recycling capacity happening. In the UK and Europe, we mainly see the bottles and plastic film being recycled here and then sent over as a product to Asia to be manufactured. That is how the Chinese ban has affected the market.

Has any other global crisis impacted the recycling market as significantly as COVID?

“I think the biggest one we have had was the financial crisis in 2008, prices just tanked at that point ” He continued by saying that the Evergreen Ship that got stuck in the Suez Canal, affected global supply chains significantly. Goods that were supposed to come over here didn’t end up coming here. That had a big impact on the availability of material and availability of containers to ship the material back to the manufacturers abroad. Paul Anderson predicts the energy crisis is going to be the next one that is going to have a significant impact. If people are buying less stuff, there’s going to be less to recycle."

In terms of price volatility, what are the riskiest materials to trade now, and do you offer that expertise to your subscribers?

The recycling insights founder states that it’s not the material that is the riskiest, but the packaging recovery notes. Essentially, every time somebody puts a ton of packaging on the market, they’ve got to pay for a ton of material to be recycled He reveals that the UK has had that since the late 1990s and that’s only a UK thing In the UK, it’s traded and it’s become hugely volatile They get data every month, especially every quarter. When that data comes out, that is when the market really trades based on whether we meet our targets or not. S

More about the company: Recycling Insights Recycling Insights provides data using artificial intelligence and machine learning for the recycling sector.

See: www.recyclinginsights.com

Customer demographics: multinational waste management companies and recyclers, whose bins you have probably seen around the streets, to smaller family businesses. Also, some local authorities, shipping lines, and one or two retailers are subscribed The business is predominantly in the UK, but it does have some international subscribers who have operations in the UK.

Paul Sanderson

The company utilises AI and machine learning to provide their subscribers with real-time market prices and forecasted prices of recycled materials, which is essential in helping scrap traders plan when to buy and sell to optimise their revenue.