News

The recycled packaging materials market is beginning to stabilise, but there are still concerns over the length of time it will take to fully recover.

Ian Wakelin, chief executive of recycling firm Greenstar, told Packaging News the firm was seeing the first signs of a "bottoming out and recovery" in the market and was confident the market would pick up again within three months.

"Last week, we saw prices and demand for all recovered materials go up, although plastics remains a challenge," he said.

Jonathan Short, chief executive of AWS Ecoplastics, echoed the view that prices were stabilising, but maintained they would remain low for some time due to the global recession.

"People are having to get used to lower prices, although the situation is now not as tough as a couple of weeks ago," he said.

Short urged firms not to stockpile material in the hope that the price would go up in a couple of months. "If you can shift the material now, I'd shift it," he said.

Peter Seggie, recovered paper manager at the Confederation of Paper Industries, said the market for good quality materials was stabilising, but the situation for lower grade product was less clear.

Corus Steel Packaging Recycling, which was among the first firms to highlight the recycled materials market collapse, maintained it was not going to buy material for the next six months, and was waiting for domestic orders to pick up.

Manager David Williams said that an upturn in China and India would not necessarily have an impact on UK demand for reprocessed material. "Until consumers start spending again and feel more confident about buying, it's going to be difficult," he said.