The new Recycling Market Development Platform will highlight companies and connect people with tools and information related to recycling. | TippaPatt/Shutterstock
More Recycling and the American Chemistry Council (ACC) this month announced the Recycling Market Development Platform, a website offering information on recycling and material use to stakeholders throughout the recycling value chain.
Indorama noted the company’s investments in recycling are influenced by the fact numerous brand owners are committing to incorporate more recycled plastic in their products. | barbacane/Shutterstock
Resin giant Indorama Ventures will more than triple its global RPET production capacity in the next few years, according to the company’s most recent annual report.
Over the past month, the price of baled PET containers has dropped by 12%, and natural HDPE continues to slide down from the record-high levels seen in January.
S&P Global Platts decided to launch daily spot price assessments for PET bales starting April 1. | Gunter Menzel
Commodities research company S&P Global Platts has started reporting post-consumer PET bale prices in Chicago and Los Angeles.
Regulatory changes, and an overall sense of uncertainty, are playing into difficulty moving scrap materials abroad. | 28 November Studio/Shutterstock
Overseas markets for recovered plastic, including Malaysia and India, are experiencing disruption as governments enact widespread restrictions and close ports in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
In communities around the country, recycling programs are limiting the materials they collect, altering service hours or shutting down altogether. | Oksana Shturo/Shutterstock
Recycling programs nationwide have curtailed service due to the coronavirus pandemic, potentially hampering the supply of scrap plastics moving to reclaimers in the weeks to come.
Tangent Technologies announced that it acquired Bedford Technology in late February. | YP photographer/Shutterstock
A company that recycles HDPE into composite lumber has acquired another manufacturer in the same space.
An ongoing battle between OPEC and Russia is flooding the market with cheap barrels of oil, threatening downward pressure on virgin plastics prices. | Rebekah Zemansky/Shutterstock
Construction has been delayed on two large U.S. prime plastics plants – one because of high costs and the other due to coronavirus. At the same time, an oil price war put downward pressure on virgin plastic prices.
North American plastics recycling companies are working to prevent the spread of coronavirus within their operations. | joshimerbin/Shutterstock
The global escalation of COVID-19 is leading reclaimers to enact new safety regulations, while on a wider scale it impacts some collection programs, reduces Asian scrap plastics demand, constrains global shipping, dents stock prices and threatens an economic recession.
Business challenges related to the wider market are likely to pop up again and again in the coming months. | Poring Studio/Shutterstock