ISRI releases '2018 Recycling Industry Yearbook'

The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI), Washington, released its seventh annual "Recycling Industry Yearbook", which provides up-to-date information and statistics about the U.S. recycling industry and global scrap marketplace. 

According to an ISRI news release, the publication provides a comprehensive analysis of where the industry stands based on the most current data compared with previous years and it serves as a baseline for years to come based on the new global market realities.

“The scrap marketplace has become increasingly global in recent decades and the United States is the largest exporter of recycled commodities in the world,” says Joe Pickard, ISRI’s chief economist. “China’s rapid economic expansion was the most important driver of the swift expansion of the global scrap market, but market conditions in China are changing today given China’s rising domestic supply of scrap, investment in scrap processing and import restrictions. But as we show in the 2018 Yearbook, scrap recyclers remain extremely responsive to changing market conditions and are focused on producing consistently high-quality scrap commodities to meet consumer demands at home and abroad.”

Based on some statistics in the "2018 Recycling Industry Yearbook," preliminary data shows exports of all scrap commodities from around the world were valued at about $105 billion in 2017. Also, exports of all scrap commodities from the U.S. increased to nearly 38 million tons valued at $1.9 billion last year. Exports of scrap commodity also account for about 25 percent of the industry’s economic activity. 

The 2018 yearbook features more data on several commodities and provides historical information on production, recovery and consumption. It also highlights scrap trade flows and scrap price indexes. ISRI’s "2018 Recycling Industry Yearbook" can be downloaded online.