Recycling Today Conferences: Electronics Price Points

For those electronics recyclers who depend on scrap metal and plastic sales for part of their revenue streams, the previous nine months have provided serious challenges.

Presentations at one session at Recycling Today’s Electronics Recycling Conference in Atlanta provided an overview of recent market conditions and some insight into how scrap prices can be determined within the market.

Session moderator Brian Taylor of the Recycling Today Media Group offered an overview of recent metals pricing history. London Metal Exchange (LME) pricing in late 2008 and early 2009 indicated that copper was selling as high as $8,683 per metric ton in April of 2008 but plunged to $3,071 per ton by December—losing two-thirds of its value in eight months.

Similarly, scrap iron prices, as tracked by MSA Inc. of Pittsburgh, fell in value from $556 per ton in April to $160 per ton in November, likewise dropping in value by two-thirds.

For electronics recyclers, the result is a revenue line item that dropped dramatically on a per-month basis as 2008 unfolded.

Len Stack of Sipi Metals Corp., Chicago, provided detail into the precious metals market. Sipi Corp. operates a smelter that refines platinum, gold, copper and other metals from integrated circuits and other obsolete electronics components.

According to Stack, platinum group metals plummeted in value in 2008 while gold stayed closer to retaining its value. “It’s been an absolute roller coaster,” said Stack. “Fortunately, some of it coming back,” he said of the value of metals.

Mark Matza of Fortune Metals & Plastics, Jersey City, N.J., recommended commodities price hedging as a way for recyclers to protect themselves from market volatility. “Then it doesn’t matter if the price is up or down—we make money on the value we’re adding.”

Fortune, with locations throughout the world, processes obsolete items and scrap commodities near where its customers generate materials, said Matza.

In addition to commodity prices changing, materials can gain or lose value depending on processing technology, said Matza. He cited the example of wire and cable, where he estimated that 40 percent of the weight of such materials (the plastics portion) used to be land filled. But now, Fortune and other companies are finding ways to process the plastics to create a recycled-content commodity.

Matza also recommended the ISRI (Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries Inc.) Scrap Specifications Circular and metals and plastics sorting classes and handbooks as ways that electronics recyclers can help ensure that they receive maximum value for the materials they generate.

Recycling Today’s Paper, Plastics and Electronics Conferences were held June 7-9 at the Hyatt Regency Atlanta in that city’s downtown.