ICIS launches European pricing service for mixed plastics

Independent Commodity Intelligence Services (ICIS), London, has released a new weekly pricing service for Europe, offering benchmarkable price quotes for mixed polyolefin bales, polyvinyl chloride- (PVC-) screened reject bales suitable for refuse-derived fuel and material recovery facility reject bales.

According to a news release from ICIS, the shortage in supply of monomaterial plastic scrap to feed the mechanical recycling market has led to a spike in prices, with the cost of polyethylene terephthalate, polyethylene and polypropylene doubling in the last year and high-density polyethylene quadrupling. ICIS reports that this has increased the relevance of mixed plastic bales, which were previously economically unviable due to sorting costs and yield losses.

However, ICIS reports that mixed polyolefin waste bales are the main feedstock and the largest variable cost for chemical recycling producers in Europe. ICIS says these producers “are looking to other waste grades, specifically PVC-screened reject bales.” Additionally, demand is growing for unsorted reject bales from chemical recyclers and petrochemical firms with installed PVC sorting on-site.

“These mixed waste markets are becoming increasingly important to a circular plastics economy,” says Louise Boddy, head of commercial strategy, sustainability at ICIS. “The new pricing service will enable players throughout the chain to make better informed purchasing decisions and support further investment in the waste and chemical recycling sectors by providing much-needed price transparency to those markets.”

ICIS says this new pricing service will enable customers to understand when and how much to pay for mixed plastic bales. It also will support chemical producers looking to invest in chemical recycling.

In addition, ICIS says this new pricing service will help it to better track chemical recycling developments, which will complement data from the ICIS chemical Recycling Supply Tracker that launched in October as well as the mechanical Recycling Supply Tracker it launched in February.

“Having independent and regular prices for this industry will help customers make the best and most timely buying and selling decisions and enable [fast-moving consumer goods companies] to understand how the feedstock costs are impacting the cost of their end products. Mixed plastic waste pricing will provide vital transparency to this developing market,” Boddy adds.