$40 per tonne Increase in Recovered Paper Transport Costs from Europe to China : BIR Conference – Shipping Rates for Paper Recycling Industry ‘Explode’
An “explosion” in container rates “had nearly dealt a death blow to the shipping of recovered paper”, delegates to the Recent Bureau of International Recycling (BIR) World Recycling Convention & Exhibition in Hong Kong were told.
The latest BIR Paper Division meeting heard from the outgoing President, Reinhold Schmidt of Germany-based Recycling Karla Schmidt that freight costs for shipments between Europe and China had soared more than US$ 1000 per container - or US$ 40 a tonne - in the opening months of 2017.
BIR World President Ranjit Baxi of J&H Sales International added that although rates were dropping below US$ 2000 per container and were likely to stabilise at nearer US$ 1200-1400 in the coming months, greater dialogue was required with the shipping industry to ensure it understood the impact of precipitously steep rate increases on the recovered paper industry.
“We never have an audience with the shipping lines,” he lamented during a panel discussion in Hong Kong moderated by Recycling International magazine’s Chief Editor Martijn Reintjes.
Baxi supported China’s desire to eliminate incoming material that was contaminated and unsuitable for use as a secondary raw material. A “zero tolerance” approach “would affect us all” as sorting systems were unable to achieve 100% purity, he said. But at the same time, exporters from Europe, for example, “must move their quality a notch higher”.
For European OCC and mixed paper shipments to China, a steep price decline around the start of the second quarter of 2017 had been followed by an almost immediate recovery, it was explained in the European market report from new Paper Division board member Martin Soth of Sběrné suroviny UH sro of the Czech Republic.
This about-turn was attributable to “lower stocks and more stable containerboard orders for mills in China” as well as to “the strength of fibre demand in Europe itself”, he said.
In his guest presentation, Nobuyuki Shiose of Daiwa-Shiryo Co., Ltd of Japan noted a growing preference among Japanese paper mills for dealing with those fibre suppliers able to offer larger tonnages.
“It is possible to get higher prices if you can offer more volume,” he said. This trend could lead to consolidation within the supply sector and create a competitive environment in which “small companies will be the losers”.
Also in Hong Kong, Thomas Braun of BVSE in Germany stepped down as General Delegate of the BIR Paper Division after 15 years. In his role as Vice President of the European Recycling Industries’ Confederation and its recovered paper branch ERPA, he pointed to continuing “tensions” with the paper manufacturing industry which sees opportunities in the EU’s Circular Economy package to “restrict exports of recovered paper outside Europe”.
Braun argued this “short-term vision” should be opposed as the European market’s “structural oversupply” of recovered paper made exports necessary to “support collection, increase recycling rates and maintain competitive prices”.
Read More
BIR Conference Told Risks of Recycling Tyres into Crumb Rubber Comprehensively Debunked
While the potential risks associated with the use of crumb rubber in synthetic turf, have been debunked by over 90 separate pieces of research, the issue “is not going away” until “a definitive study” is published, according to Robin Wiener, President of ISRI.
New Online Market Place for Recycling Firms to Trade Recovered Paper
Manhattan Beach, California online industrial marketplace start up, merQbiz, is aiming to improve the way buyers and sellers of recovered paper do business.
Chinese Customs Using X-Ray Vison to Ensure Quality of Paper for Recycling
Chinese Customs authorities are now using x-ray machines to check every container entering the country, according to UK paper recycling trade group the Recycling Association.
