The market for recyclables has declined modestly during September.  Both paper and plastics pricing declined with the most significant drop in the plastics grades. We attribute this broad based decline in pricing to the normal seasonal changes in demand for paper and plastic products.  For paper, most of the extra demand from the Harvest and… Read more »

The value of Residential Mix has improved for August primarily due to a modest increase in paper pricing.  Paper demand is very strong currently in the eastern half of our country and the Westcoast mills have responded to this.  This improvement may be short lived as seasonal factors are likely to assert themselves soon. The… Read more »

The market for most recyclables has held steady (plastics & metals) or moved modestly upward. (paper)  The net impact has been an improvement in ResMix pricing for July. We believe the improving paper pricing is related to the impact of both seasonal demand and product substitution both of which we discussed last month.  To review,… Read more »

The market for the majority of recycling commodities has moved upward in June, including for MIX paper which is very encouraging. Let me try to explain how this occurred, beginning with the plastic grades.  A significant portion of recycled plastics finds its way to the construction, landscaping, irrigation and outdoor furniture industries.  All of these… Read more »

The market for ResMix received in May has changed little from the pricing in April.  Notably, that doesn’t begin to tell the whole story of changes to the recycling market over the past four weeks. Prior to May 3rd Pioneer had indications that the market for OCC cardboard would move up by $20+/Ton in May. … Read more »

The market for recyclables in April has continued the trend established in March of lower paper prices and higher pricing for many plastics and metals.  Because paper represents about 75% of the comingled yield, the overall value of ResMix has declined again in April. The decline in paper pricing is simply a function of supply… Read more »

To best understand the market for recyclables in March, one must distinguish between paper and the container grades (metal and plastic) as described below. (If you are short of time – the summary version is that while paper has continued to decline, plastics and metals have increased as is normal this time of year.  The… Read more »

The market for recyclables has continued to move lower in February.  This results from the precipitous decline in demand from Chinese buyers….Stop!!  — Somehow the normal “economist speak” just doesn’t do justice to the current state of the market for recyclables.  A better way to describe the current situation is something like “The market for… Read more »

It’s the beginning of a New Year and an entirely new environment for the Recycling Industry.  Beginning on January 2nd, we started hearing from Chinese buyers that they were cancelling existing orders and requiring bale breaking inspections before any shipments could resume.  Additionally, they made clear that we would be required to meet the new… Read more »

The market for recyclables has mostly moved sideways with the exception of MIX paper which has declined significantly.  Let’s talk about MIX pricing first as this is a case of a classic demand shift. Earlier this year the Chinese announced that they would no longer purchase MIX paper as of Jan 2018.  The announcement alone… Read more »