A ‘feeling of uncertainty’ is permeating the European plastics recycling industry owing to the impact of Covid-19 on the market, according to the Bureau of International Recycling (BIR), with a mixed picture emerging for other recycling industries. In a Covid-19 update on the state of international recycling markets released yesterday (12 May), the BIR stated that the oil price slump is keeping prices low and ‘huge stocks are overhanging the market’, contributing to unease compounded by the fact that ‘European plastics recyclers obviously have little idea themselves how supply… will develop in the coming weeks’.
Lockdown restrictions have resulted in difficulties securing a supply of recyclables, yet with the easing of lockdown restrictions over the last week, the update highlighted some ‘glimmers of hope’. More widely, recycling collections in France are down by: 20 per cent for paper and cardboard, 24 per cent for plastics, 48 per cent for wood and 75 per cent for metals. Accordingly, the total turnover for these materials was down year on year by 39 per cent in March and by 64 per cent in April. The textiles recycling sector is showing green shoots of recovery as markets in eastern Europe are beginning to reopen, while some graders will be restarting in the coming days at reduced volumes. Meanwhile, collections of textiles in western Europe are increasing but remain low.
The picture looks more positive in east Asia, with the update suggesting that with Covid-19 cases in China declining sharply over the past month and no new cases having been reported in Taiwan for two weeks, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan are ‘slowly returning to normal’. Volumes of non-ferrous metal purchase have increased by 20-30 per cent compared to the previous week.
Source: Resource
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