During the first six months of 2019, India brought in 156 million pounds of U.S. scrap plastics. | Avigator Fortuner/Shutterstock
Recovered plastic has largely stopped flowing from the U.S. into India, which until recently has been among the top importers of the material.
U.S. exporters shipped out 773 million pounds of scrap plastic in the first half of 2019. | aapsky/Shutterstock
Federal trade statistics released last week show U.S. export volumes for the first six months of 2019. Recycled plastics have seen a major drop when compared with figures from a year ago.
The returned containers held a total of 3.2 million pounds of material. | porjai kittawornrat/Shutterstock
More Southeast Asian nations are sending contaminated recyclables back to their originating country, as governments in the region continue to grapple with higher scrap plastic and paper import volumes.
Indonesia has become the fourth largest importer of U.S. recovered paper. | Naruedom Yaempongsa/Shutterstock
A top importer of U.S. recovered paper continues to develop new quality criteria for inbound shipments, despite previous signs the country had settled on specific contamination thresholds.
Bill Moore at WasteExpo 2019.
North America’s residential mixed-paper prices are deep in the negative numbers in some areas. That pain will likely persist for some time, one analyst predicts.
Coca-Cola will help develop a $19 million plastics recycling facility in the Philippines, marking the company’s first recycling operation in Southeast Asia.
Containers at a port in Jakarta, indonesia.
Import guidelines for scrap paper shipments to Indonesia have been revised and are less stringent than initially proposed, the country’s government announced last week. Still, the rules will mean additional inspections for paper traders.
Chris Cui on stage at the 2019 Plastics Recycling Conference and Trade Show.
Although the recycling relationship between the U.S. and China was hampered by scrap material restrictions, an expert says companies in both countries can help each other.
The Chinese government last week issued its latest round of recovered paper import permits, approving 2.5 million tons.
Chinese officials doubled down on plans to ban virtually all recovered material imports by the end of the year, despite opposition from U.S. interests.