Could stable January lead to better year for recovered paper markets?

It’s safe to say many in the recovered paper industry are happy to leave 2025 behind, as closures, increasing costs and many notable facility closures made for a challenging year, to say the least.

Heading into 2025, several recovered paper markets, including mixed paper and old corrugated containers (OCC) experienced downward demand and pricing trends that never fully let up as the year progressed. Now, however, some in the industry are seeing a stability that wasn’t there a year ago, and that is enough to prompt sighs of relief—at least for now.

“I'm starting to get a sense that it's changing,” a broker based in the Southwest tells Recycling Today. I'm seeing mills are buying. I'm hearing [of] more movement, which we didn’t hear for most of last year. Last year was horrible.”

The broker tells Recycling Today that a combination of facility closures seen throughout 2025 and Mexico essentially removing itself from the market last year created a “perfect storm” that led to an oversupply of material that had nowhere to go.

“There was a lot of fiber available,” the broker says. “And with Mexico out of the market last year, it was pretty much a perfect storm. … Everybody was saying that they were seeing low generation, but I didn’t see it because there was so much fiber available that wasn’t moving.

“I just think it was a little bit tough last year. You heard of a lot of mergers, a lot of closures, and a lot of brokerage arms closed, so that was tough.”

She notes that Mexico has reentered the market to start 2026 and is actively buying high grades, in particular, as well as sorted office paper (SOP) and some brown grades, something she says was “nonexistent” last year.

Additionally, that additional outlet for an oversupplied market has helped keep some of that material out of the landfill.

“I've seen the shift, which is great, because there was just no movement [last year],” the broker says. “It [had] cost more to sort and separate. I just feel a lot of material was going to the landfill. It was starting to get into that point. I had a couple mills last year in early December asking me for mix[ed paper]. I'm like, ‘You guys are joking, right? It's in the landfill.’ It costs too much to sort separate and bale.”

The early-year stability is reflected in current recovered paper prices, too.

According to Fastmarkets RISI’s Pulp & Paper Week for Jan. 5, the average prices per ton in the United States for mixed paper, OCC and SOP have held firm for two consecutive months, with OCC even seeing a $1-per-ton increase in January.

Until this January, the last OCC per-ton price increase was in April 2025 before the price decreased 6 of the next 8 months to end the year. Meanwhile, SOP had not seen consecutive months of firm pricing since June through August 2025.

OCC had been hit the hardest last year as packaging demand never fully rebounded from what was deemed the cardboard box recession of 2024. Compared with January 2025, OCC’s average U.S. price per ton is down $21, while mixed paper is down $19 and SOP down $14.

“Last year, everyone was saying, ‘It's going to get better, it's going to get better, it's going to get better,” the Southwest-based broker says. “We were waiting and waiting and waiting, and this time last year it was getting worse. … It was going backwards.

“This year, I kind of feel like we're taking a little bit of a hop forward, because right now, I can sell OCC, I can sell SOP, I can sell hard white … which, last year, it was like, ‘Take it. Just take it. Give me an offer.”

She says she is continuing to see more of a positive outlook as of January that wasn’t necessarily there the same time last year but also is waiting for the impact of the post-Lunar New Year buying period.

“This time last year, we were still struggling quite a bit, and right now, I just hope it continues to go this way,” the broker says. “The last couple of weeks have been really nice and I hope it continues going. … “We’ll see what happens after Chinese New Year. Will they come out swinging and ready to buy? Or will they be sluggish?”