November PRN market data released

November was a very strong month across all recycling grades. This is compared to a relatively weak October, which could point to some under reporting of certain grades in the previous month. Despite November’s positive performance, there remains contention over some grades meeting their overall obligation.

Paper and board

November was a great month for paper recycling (315,000T), with enough PRNs generated to cover both the monthly requirement for paper and almost the monthly general requirement (combined monthly required, 320,000T). However, as general recycling has been significantly behind this still leaves the paper PRN price rising and supply relatively low.

Glass re-melt and Glass Other

Glass re-melt continues to overperform, perhaps due to the high PRN price, exceeding its monthly requirement by 20,000T. Meanwhile, glass other had its strongest month of the year so far with 64,000T reprocessed. This has brought us significantly closer towards closing the glass gap, leaving glass overall ahead of target by 28,000T.

Aluminium

Aluminium continues to perform very consistently with 11,620 PRNs generated in November against a monthly requirement of 11,618T. This leaves aluminium still slightly ahead of year to date requirement with a possibility that we could see some of this moving to general recycling by the end of the year.

Steel

After a very weak October, steel had its second strongest performance of the year, more than doubling last month’s production (24,000T vs 50,0000T). Given the large difference, this could mean that October was under reported. This currently puts steel comfortably ahead of target, but despite that prices have remained at historical highs that are likely to flow into the early part of next year.

Plastic

Vast improvement on plastic performance from October (78,000T) to November (119,000T). This leaves plastic just ahead of requirement to date however, with just 2,000T of excess, hitting the UK obligation is still in question.

Wood

Whilst there was a drop off from October (70,000T) to November (51,000T), this remains a great performance overall and continues to help close the general recycling gap that we’ve seen throughout the year. It does appear that we will need to see general recycling bought against other over performing grades in order to meet the overall requirement.

Ed Ewence, Assistant Commercial Director, Clarity Environmental commented:

“November has been a high performing month with every single recycling grade surpassing its monthly requirement. However, due to poor performances earlier in the year, it remains unclear whether some grades will meet the UK obligation, especially for plastic and general recycling. 

“With these particular grades so close to target, we could still see volatility and sweeping market changes as it becomes more apparent if the grades will fall short or surpass the overall requirements. At present, forward markets are indicating that 2023 will start with similar high prices to the last few months of 2022 ”