The Indian government announced it’s plan to ban plastic scrap imports earlier this year and will take effect on August 31st. Since the China ban last year, India was the top importer of plastic scrap material, rough figures around 156 million pounds, for the first six months of 2019. The ban is proposed to cover most plastics under the 3915 tariff code, including PET, PE, PP, PS and more.
For the time being, however, clean regrind is still going to the country, traders say, and it’s mostly the baled scrap plastic that has been impacted.
The influx of material has led to greater attention to contamination, particularly when the importing country does not have adequate infrastructure to dispose of that contamination.
These issues have built significant public pressure on governments to take action in thinking green and instill people to separate trash and recyclables so that we can preserve our planet we live on to better our children’s future here on this planet.
In the US, California is taking major initiative to drive new plastic recycling facilities by providing grants.
There continues to be a big push to increase recycled post-consumer plastics use in bag production especially in the state of California.
Garbage bags sold in California have been required to be made with 10% post-consumer plastic for nearly 30 years. And since 2016, concurrent with a single-use bag ban at retail stores, the state has required that all reusable plastic bags be made with 20% post-consumer plastic. That requirement increases to 40% next year.
There are several companies that have received grant funding to push plastic recycling in California.
If your company has been on the fence on turn key plastic recycling systems and processing to create product now is the time to move forward.
The Indian government says it will ban scrap plastic imports, a move that threatens to further disrupt the U.S. recycling industry by closing a growing market.
“Solid plastic waste has been prohibited from import into the country,” the release stated, specifying that the ban closes exemptions to existing import restrictions. The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) shared the information in an alert to members Wednesday March 6, 2019.
India has become a larger scrap plastic importer over the past two years and was among the top importers of U.S. plastic in 2018. The increase has been driven by the loss of China as a downstream outlet for U.S. plastic scrap went into effect at the start of 2018.
U.S. year-end trade figures for 2018, released this week, show India brought in 294 million pounds of scrap plastic last year. That was up from 271 million pounds in 2017 and 203 million pounds in 2016.
The release doesn’t specify a date of implementation and also doesn’t get into detail on resins (possibilities include PET, PE, PP, PE and PS) that will be covered by the new regulation.
California is a proven leader in environmental initiatives and policy and recyclers are now pushing to making substantial investments in mixed-plastics processing capacity, bringing positive news for a region hard hit by China’s ban.
The operations are installing lines for sorting mixed-plastic bales into discrete materials, some of which they’ll further process to clean and wash, shred, extrude and finally pelletize so you can put this material back into your products.
If your company has been on the fence on turn key plastic recycling systems and processing to create product now is the time to move forward.
Whenever there’s a problem, there’s going to someone that comes up with an idea to solve this issue. In our case with the China ban on plastic scrap, a Silicon Valley based technology company called Scrapo, who built a platform that connects suppliers & buyers of recyclable plastics.
It’s absolutely true that there’s an app for everything.
Fun facts:
Today there are over 10,000 buyers and sellers that are active users on the platform and this number is growing.
75% of these users are outside the United Sates.
Scrapo does not take a fee for listings or sales
How platform makes money is with their enhanced services which they help the user with the sales, logistics and payment processes.
Listings on the marketplace cover loose or baled material, flakes and pellets.
65% of plastic listed on the platform has been post-industrial material and 35% post-consumer plastic.
If your tired of selling your scrap and perhaps thought about having a turn key plastic recycling systems then we can help guide you through this journey.
There continues to be bad news on plastic recyclers and matters seem to worsen day-by-day.
The Chinese government plans to levy a 25% tariff on scrap plastic, as well as a number of virgin plastics and all recovered paper, in retaliation for the latest U.S. tariff proposals.
China’s Ministry of Commerce on Aug. 8 issued the latest list of tariffs the country is planning to implement on goods from the U.S. starting next week. The list identifies scrap PET, PE, PVC, PS and other plastics among the product codes that would be hit with the 25% duty.
The tariff codes named in the list would cover all scrap plastic, of which about 30.2 million pounds were exported from the U.S. to China during the first half of this year. In comparison to 2017, the U.S. sent 379.3 million pounds of scrap plastic to China.
The action also covers a handful of virgin resins, as well as recovered fiber.
Among the virgin plastics that will be hit with duties is high density polyethylene (HDPE). The U.S. shipped 300,000 metric tons of HDPE to China last year. The list also adds linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE), of which 130,000 metric tons were exported to China last year.
The virgin impact is important for the recycling industry because recycled plastic prices often follow virgin resin trends.
Although previous tariffs have affected the recycling industry through steel and aluminum pricing and availability, or by their impact on recycling equipment, the new proposal from China marks the first instance of recovered plastic and paper being targeted directly.
If your company has been on the fence on turn key plastic recycling systems now is the time to move forward.
“Thailand and a number of other Southeast Asian nations have seen substantially more scrap material flow into its ports this year because of China’s disappearance as a downstream destination. Census figures show U.S. exporters shipped 132.8 million pounds of scrap plastic to Thailand in the first four months of 2018, up from 4.6 million pounds shipped during the same period a year earlier.” – Resource Recycling
It is said that Chinese companies have set up factories around Southeast Asia, looking to stay in business by processing materials and shipping pellets back to China. Other Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam is onboard with this as well.
This is more disappointing news on the plastic ban spreading like wildfire. The government of Thailand has banned all scrap plastic from entering its ports, amid a major increase in shipments to the country along with other Southeast Asia countries. There is now an indefinite ban effective immediately imports of plastic scrap. Officials will begin inspecting recycling facilities across the countries.
Even the shipping and logistics companies responded swiftly to the Thai government announcement. Maersk, APL, Hapag-Lloyd, MCC Transport and others have announced on June 23 that it would stop accepting shipments of recovered plastic bound for any port in Thailand.
Because of all of this, there has been significant activity with recyclers domestically and now really pushing to add new full turn key recycling systems in place. It’s a race to see who will jump on this bandwagon of zero waste and zero carbon to clean up the environment and in the process capture business opportunities.
Quick update for those that haven’t heard already and if we already didn’t have enough bad news going on with the ban on post-consumer plastics ban into China. Here’s more as China plans to prohibit imports of post-industrial scrap plastic by the end of the year.
The Chinese Ministry of Ecology and Environment announced that it is set to re-categorize post-industrial PE, PET, PS, PVC and other scrap plastic as materials banned from import, according to The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries.
Post-industrial scrap plastics, including production scraps, off-cuts and regrind, were not named in the ban on post-consumer plastic that went into effect this year. Post-industrial loads, however, are subject to the sharp 0.5 percent contamination limits that went into effect March 1.
Chinese officials previously alluded to the country’s plans for further phased-in material import restrictions. The new announcement likely signals that the volume of scrap plastic shipped into China, which has dropped off substantially this year since the post-consumer ban took effect, will further decrease in 2019.
The market turbulence caused by China’s prohibitions over the last year have caused North American recycling stakeholders to scramble to determine the viability of markets in Southeast Asia and other parts of the world.
More focus has also been put on trying to quickly develop greater capacity to use recovered material in domestic applications. So which path are you going to take?
Hirate America has solutions to provide full turn key plastic recycling systems with a combination of Lindner Resource for shredders and wash lines and Next Generation Recycling (NGR) for all-in-one shredder + extruder + pelletizer.
Credit to Plastics Recycling Update, see original article here.
If you have a project that you would like to discuss, feel free to contact us below to schedule a free consultation.
We all want to believe that the resin we buy, whether it be virgin, re-pro, or regrind, will come free of any contaminants/metal, but experience tells us otherwise. Whether it be pieces of metal that broke off from the process of pelletizing, grinding, or just the accidentally dropped bolt, we have all found metal in our material at some point in time.
Before we jump into the 5 reasons why having a magnet or metal separator in your plastic process will absolutely provide a quick ROI, here’s how it works:
The video below showcases Sesotec Sesotec’s Protector metal separator in action, which ensures that your process will be free and clear from any metal contamination. The metal separators are installed directly at the material inlet of the injection molding machines and we believe it is an important component in the protection of your molding machines and molds.
1. Damage to your Screw and or Barrel.
A piece of metal can cause minor scratches to your screw/barrel, or render it completely useless, which can cost anywhere from $5,000 to $20,000 dollars depending on the damage and size of your injection molding machine.
2. Damage to your mold and or hot runner system.
If you are getting small amounts of metal in your material that doesn’t get caught by your nozzle tip filters, it can clog up your hot runner tips, causing more frequent maintenance to be required, or cause a breakage in the tip/valve which can quickly become an expensive repair.
3. Down time.
Every time you have to clean out a filter, get maintenance done, or send out your equipment for repairs, you lose precious production time, which may cause problems in your production schedule.
4. Cost of Labor.
Whether it gets calculated or not, time spent by employees removing equipment or doing maintenance is an hourly cost, and time spent dealing with avoidable metal problems, is time not spent doing other necessary maintenance/work.
5. The effect on sales.
If the downtime causes a shortage on production, this could lead to problems or even the loss of a customer(s). There is also the level of confidence that any potential customer(s) will have when they see your process has a magnet & metal separator protecting your equipment or their molds.
From our experience, we have seen payback on magnets & metal separators to pay themselves off by catching metal contamination. We recently did a trial of a magnet at a custom molder who was using 100% virgin material, and within the first 3 weeks, they found a nail on the magnet. This saved them thousands of dollars of repairs and down time with just a several hundred dollar investment. They immediately invested in 10 magnets for their machines.
Conclusion
Magnets and metal separators protect your equipment, minimizes downtime, saves you money on repairs/labor, reduces scrap rates, and provides confidence to your customers.
They clearly increase productivity, consistency, and product quality. Magnets and Metal separators typically have a 1 to 6 month return on investment (ROI) because catching 1 piece of metal 1 time will typically pay off the unit by preventing repairs. Sesotec’s “easy-clean” magnets has a removable stainless steel sleeve over the magnet, which instantaneously removes metal from the magnet. There is also a clear glass opening so you can see if any metal is caught on the magnet without having to continuously checking for metal contaminates. Any metal caught will remain on the magnet or in the discharge bin, ready to be presented as evidence.
Having a magnet & metal separator is an insurance policy on your machines. Hirate America is partnered with Sesotec, a German based company (one of the most well-known respected in the industry). They provide many types of magnets, metal separators and optical sorting equipment to provide a solution for every process.
Please contact us if you have any projects you’d like to discuss with us.
