The situation facing plastics recyclers in Germany and across Europe remains extremely tense, with sales opportunities for regranulate and regrind once again falling well short of expectations in November. Many buyers were cautious and preferred to draw on existing inventories or source very cheap virgin plastics. Whenever they did opt for recycled plastics, customers pushed for additional discounts, insiders told EUWID.
Additionally, plastic converters announced early that they planned to take extended downtime over the Christmas and New Year period. Many recyclers felt that November largely passed without a significant outflow of material. There were numerous reports of price concessions and, in isolated cases, even of panic selling by companies seeking to secure short-term liquidity.
The combination of weak demand, converters' own poor order intake and the significantly lower prices of primary plastics further worsened the economic situation. To cover ongoing costs and narrow the gap to achievable selling prices, recyclers cut their purchase prices for input material quite sharply.
Here and there, remuneration for certain types of regrind or plastic waste was set at zero, even though this raised the risk of lower supply volumes. In this strained environment, offtake guarantees and ensuring the continuity of waste management services clearly now play a more important role and, in some cases, are now valued more highly than achieving the maximum possible price, market players told EUWID.
Read the full monthly market report for waste plastics in Germany covering polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene and PVC grades and access price charts and graphing tools here:
