Scrap plastics recently enjoyed a month-to-month rise in shipments abroad. Paper and metals, however, were marked by declines.
In August, scrap plastics exports totaled 375.91 million pounds, a rise of 8.8 percent from July 2016 export levels.
When matched against August 2015 levels, the volume of plastic scrap exports in the month was up by 9.1 percent. That bucks the trend seen most of this year – monthly plastics exports numbers have generally lagged those of the year prior.
The weighted price of recovered plastic exports also saw an increase. At 17.27 cents per pound, the price was up 2.3 percent from its July standing. The price is flat when compared with the price level from August 2015.
However, with 2.82 billion pounds of scrap plastics exported through the first eight months of 2016, the year-to-date (YTD) volume was down 10.5 percent from the YTD figure this time last year. At 17.32 cents per pound, the average price through August 2016 was down by 4.7 percent from its 2015 YTD standing.
As for other exported materials, recovered paper exports were down slightly through the first eight months of 2016, reversing a trend of volume growth that played out through the first half of the year.
Through August, 13.15 million metric tons of paper were exported, a 1.3 percent decrease when compared with August 2015 YTD levels. At $154 per metric ton, the weighted average price of exported recovered paper through August was down YTD by 1.5 percent.
The 7.98 million metric tons of ferrous scrap exported through August 2016 amounted to a 9.4 percent YTD decrease. At $279 per metric ton, the weighted average price of exported ferrous scrap was down 17.0 percent from August 2015 YTD levels.
Finally, the 1.97 billion pounds of aluminum scrap exported in 2016 through August amounted to a 14.5 percent decrease compared with the August 2015 YTD figure. At 64 cents per pound, the average price of exported aluminum scrap through August 2016 was down by 14.8 percent compared with last year’s total through the first eight months.
