Materials Price Crash... One Year On

摘要

In the autumn of 2008 the price of recycled materials fell dramatically and, by the end of the year, the industry - and even the national press - was awash with reports of price crashes and potential materials stockpiles. Now, one year on from that initial price plummet, CIWM spoke to WRAP'S market development director, Marcus Gover, to see how the market has recovered, what the future holds and to revisit the reasons it occurred in the first place.rn"The price for all recycled materials fell, driven downwards by falling demand from the export markets, most notably China," Gover explained. Although the UK supplies only around 10 percent of China's imported paper and plastic, for example, this still represents a significant proportion of that generated by the UK. WRAP estimates that around 3.6m tonnes of recycled materials are exported to China and Hong Kong every year, 2.7m tonnes of which is recovered paper - around a quarter of the UK total. Falling demand, therefore, will have a significant impact on price... and it did.