Colin Staub is a reporter at Resource Recycling. He can be contacted at [email protected].
This year, through October, just 9.8 million short tons of recovered fiber have been imported into China. | richard pross/Shutterstock
Recent actions by the Chinese government indicate the country will likely ban imports of OCC and almost all other fiber grades in 2021. Such a move would come in the wake of industry-shaking mixed paper and plastic prohibitions already in place.
U.S. recovered fiber exports to China will continue to face a 25% tariff, as they have since September 2018. | Surapol Usanakul/Shutterstock
The Chinese government will not implement a planned tariff increase on OCC and other recovered fiber imported from the U.S., nor scrap aluminum, after the two countries came to an agreement in recent trade talks. But existing tariffs will remain.
A close-up view shows the wide variety of materials in the mixed-plastic bales. | Jared Paben/Resource Recycling, Inc.
A demonstration project found that by routing mixed bales and MRF residue to a central sorting location, more than 17,000 tons of additional plastics could be captured in the Pacific Northwest each year.
KDC and Celadon noted that in North America e-commerce trends are driving higher OCC generation in the residential recycling stream. | ja images/Shutterstock
A technology company and investment firm say they will develop two North American facilities processing more than 800,000 tons per year of mixed paper and OCC into recycled pulp and paper.
Packaging EPR is already in place in British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, Saskatchewan and Quebec. | One Photo / Shutterstock
New Brunswick will require that manufacturers pay for the end-of-life collection and processing of the packaging materials they produce.
CalRecycle, headquartered in the green-topped building, gets its authority to regulate battery labels from California’s Dry Cell Battery Management Act of 1993. | Courtesy of CalRecycle.
California officials are considering new labeling requirements concerning lithium-ion battery recycling, as the batteries continue to cause fires at MRFs around the country.
PreZero Polymers’ Jurupa Valley, Calif. campus, which is set to open early next year, will process post-consumer film. | Image courtesy of PreZero US.
A joint venture is set to launch two U.S. processing plants in 2020, bringing new outlets for lower-grade materials. Investments in the projects will total at least $90 million. Continue Reading
With its wide open spaces and physical distance from the rest of the country, things work a little differently in Alaska.
U.S. exporters shipped 4.5 million short tons of recovered fiber from July through September. That’s the lowest third-quarter volume since 2006. | MAGNIFIER / Shutterstock
Overseas appetite for scrap plastic dwindled in the third quarter. On the domestic side, operators report stable movement for common curbside materials, although fiber pricing remains a challenge.
