As Euwid explains in its latest market report, demand and prices for both good commercial film waste and regrind and regranulates are picking up strongly again. The fact that the market would have turned around for the most part after the months-long sales crisis was mainly because new material had become tight and much more expensive. The expectation that the corona crisis will be overcome would also play its part. The price increases for regrind and regranulates varied: at 25 to 50 euros per ton, they were rather moderate for customers who would have stood by the recyclers even during the crisis and at the low virgin material prices, and at up to 200 euros per ton for customers who were ordering recyclates again after a longer break.

As reasons for the situation on the virgin material market, which even experts would not have seen before, Euwid cites enormous buying interest from China and the major outage of US production facilities due to the winter storms. According to the FAZ, based on information from the IK Industrievereinigung Kunststoffverpackungen, four out of five packaging manufacturers in Germany have had to cut back on production due to the shortage of raw materials. They were annoyed that suppliers from America and Saudi Arabia would have limited their exports to Europe and instead delivered more to Asia. Due to the shortages also in supplies from Europe, IK CEO Martin Engelmann "urgently appeals to the partners in the plastics producing industry (...) to use all possible levers to defuse the situation as quickly as possible."

Sources:

• Euwid Recycling und Entsorgung 9/2021 (2.3.2021)
• FAZ (3.3.2021)
• Photo:© Fotolia