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.
CalRecycle alleges 81 out of CVS Pharmacy’s 848 California stores have not complied with state law. | Simone Hogan/Shutterstock
California regulators say retailer CVS hasn’t complied with bottle and can redemption requirements, and they’re seeking to force the company to fork over nearly $3.7 million.
The impact of the seismic shift in recycling markets over the past two-and-a-half years can be clearly seen in the quarterly recycling revenue numbers of Waste Management, which operates roughly 100 materials recovery facilities in North America.
The publicly traded company has seen its quarterly recycling-related revenue decline 35% (from $375 million to $245 million) since the third quarter of 2017. In July of 2017, China announced its intention to ban many categories of recyclables, and the policy was implemented at the start of 2018.
Values for many key curbside materials have dropped significantly since then.
Information for this month’s Data Corner came from Waste Management’s publicly available earnings reports.
This article originally appeared in the November 2019 issue of Resource Recycling. Subscribe today for access to all print content.
