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News about fiber markets captured our readers’ clicks throughout 2019. | John McLenaghan/Shutterstock
Over the past 12 months, plummeting fiber prices have hamstrung programs and recycling operators across North America. Little surprise then that analysis of that trend grabbed significant attention from our readers.
Recovered material outside the new glass processing facility in Fairfax County, Va. | Courtesy of Fairfax County.
A local program in a populous area of northern Virginia is seeing positive results after shifting glass from curbside collection to drop-off. The effort has also set the stage for a hub-and-spoke system to serve the wider region.
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.
The recycling rate for containers and packaging was 50.1% in 2017. | Arturs Budkevics/Shutterstock
The overall U.S. recycling rate was 35.2% in 2017, but underneath that number is a more complicated picture of material-specific recovery.
An expansion at JW Aluminum’s Goose Creek, S.C. site will result in a significant uptick in the company’s scrap consumption. | Courtesy of JW Aluminum Company.
JW Aluminum Company says it will be increasing its annual intake of UBCs and other forms of recycled material by at least 100 million pounds when it finishes an expansion project in the Southeast U.S. next year.
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.
Prices for curbside natural high-density polyethylene have climbed even higher over the past month. Paper prices remain painfully low.
Indorama has stated it will invest more than $1 billion in recycling over the next five years. | RecycleMan/Shutterstock
Indorama Ventures, the world’s biggest prime PET producer, has acquired another U.S. plastics recycling company, this time on the West Coast.
The How2Recycle label is used by 2,600 product brands. | Philip Rozenski/Shutterstock
Two hundred brand owners and retailers now use the How2Recycle labels on their product packaging.