Overseas markets for recovered paper and plastic are experiencing disruption as governments enact widespread restrictions and close ports in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Overseas markets for recovered paper and plastic are experiencing disruption as governments enact widespread restrictions and close ports in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Electronics recycling and reuse companies across the U.S. say the coronavirus and resulting work-from-home orders have energized the market for refurbished electronics. In some cases, they can’t keep up with the needs of customers.
The global escalation of COVID-19 is hampering some North American recycling programs, impacting Chinese users of U.S. recovered fiber, constraining global shipping, denting stock prices and threatening an economic recession.
The Chinese government will consider exempting tariffs on OCC and other recovered fiber on a company-by-company basis. Meanwhile, a tariff on U.S. recycled paper pulp shipments into China has been lifted for one year.
A large buyer of U.S. scrap paper and plastic is planning measures to reduce imports and increase domestic recycling of those materials.
One major U.S. mill operator is actively shipping recycled paper pulp to China, and another is installing equipment to bring in lower grades of paper feedstock. Those were a few takeaways from recent earnings calls from publicly traded paper firms.
China recently issued its third round of recovered fiber import permits for 2020, and the volume being allowed in this round is far less than what was approved previously.
In 2019, recovered fiber exports from the United States experienced their largest year-over-year decline on record. U.S. scrap plastic exports also continued a substantial fall.
This story originally appeared in the January 2016 issue of Resource Recycling.
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