October data released

October has resulted in a very interesting month for data as we begin to approach the end of 2022 with weak production across several grades.

Paper and Board

Excellent month for paper and board with October being the second best monthly performance of the year with 358,000T. Combined with woods performance this month, October is the first month of the year where we’ve been ahead on the general recycling requirement.

Glass Remelt/Other

After gaining some ground in the quarterly data, glass remelt saw a significant drop off in the October data and whilst glass aggregate performed similar to previous months, this still leaves glass behind overall as a grade.

With additional large producers registering over the last month the overall glass obligation increased by 96,000T meaning that the monthly requirement has increased by 8,000T. In October there was almost 100,000T less glass recycled than there were in September.

Plastic

October was a weak month for plastic PRN production with 78,000T. Whilst we did see an overall increase in requirement of 32,000T from newly registered companies, this does not represent a significant increase to monthly requirements (2,6000T increase per month).

Aluminium

Aluminium didn’t perform quite as well as it has been in previous months with 9,000T, however, we do remain ahead of the October requirement (2,500T ahead). At this stage in the year, it looks likely that we will see aluminium tonnage surplus to requirements being used to fulfil general recycling.

Steel

Steel had its best month of the year outside of months boosted by mandatory quarterly reporting, with 24,000T produced in the month of October.

Steel remains a contentious grade, currently sitting 4,500T below the October requirement. There is a potential risk that not enough steel with be reprocessed before the end of the year to meet the yearly obligation.

Wood

Wood had another huge month with 70,000T reprocessed in October. Wood is now over target; this overproduction of wood is the main contributing factor to us now being on target to meet the general recycling requirement.

Ed Ewence, Assistant Commercial Director, Clarity Environmental commented:

“2022 has been an unprecedented year for the PRN market. Due to a number of uncertainties and the possibility of some grades not meeting their requirements, we’re expecting the end of the compliance year to be tight. We can expect to see volatility through the end of the year tied into availability until the release of the next set of data.”