In March, there were signs of a slight rebound in demand for regranulate on the German plastics recycling market. Particularly high-quality clear LDPE regranulate for film production saw price mark-ups of €20-30 per tonne compared with the previous month. However, the increase did not improve recyclers’ margins because their purchase prices for polyethylene film scrap had also already risen, market participants told EUWID.
Moreover, many plants continue to operate with reduced capacity utilisation. Overall, the market situation remains extremely tense. There are more frequent reports of plant closures and the number of recycling companies up for sale has never been higher.
For regrind, on the other hand, there had still been no major price changes in March. There were again multiple reports of converters on the lookout for new suppliers because recyclers with whom they had previously worked had closed up shop.
A few other recyclers have increased their production volumes slightly, but the order situation remains weak for converters. Industry experts expect price pressure to increase again as of April, not least because of inexpensive imports of primary plastics.
Read the complete monthly market report for waste plastics in Germany covering polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene and PVC grades and access price charts and graphing tools here:
