PETpla.net Insider 06 / 2018

MATERIALS / RECYCLING PET planet Insider Vol. 19 No. 06/18 www.petpla.net 15 from other countries that now have to establish their own recycling cycle.” Low supply, high demand But establishing a recycling flow takes its own time. Driven by the high demand, the focus in China in the short term is the import of already recycled top-quality fibres or of virgin PET. This is according to a Chinaplas exhibitor from a German company that manufac- tures parts for recycling systems. “The flakes on our stand have been made up purely for demonstration purposes, but it is these that are arousing the great- est interest with the Chinese customers. Most just want to know whether they can obtain large quantities of flakes from us quickly.” According to figures from the China Chemical Fibre (CCF) Group, in 2016 China imported 2.64 million tonnes of PET waste, which now leaves a sizeable hole. “The market has certainly become more competitive since no more post- consumer bottles are being imported,” reports Ralf Altepeter, Regional Sales Manager from Gneuss. “The bottles that are collected are often of relatively low quality but are to be transformed into high-quality end products. That’s why the focus this year at Chinaplas has also been on complete turn key lines lines for PET recycling.” The reason why the collected bot- tles are of low quality is that there is no officially organised collection system but an informal one chiefly carried out by garbage pickers, who, however, obtain a very high collection rate of >90%. But since this is not enough to fill the gap, another approach to secure an addi- tional source of post-consumer bottles is to open up landfill sites to the gar- bage pickers. However, the bottles thus collected will be of a lot poorer quality making them more difficult to recycle. The Chinese market has already reacted to the shortages with price increases in the virgin PET grade area and delivery delays. “The price rise is a worry for many processing companies. In the next 3-5 years, many fibre con- verting companies will almost certainly have to close”, says Yiming Fan from Zhangjiagang Gangying Industry, a staple fibre machine manufacturer. Reduced exports are in turn affect- ing the countries that have previously obtained their virgin PET from China. China was the largest supplier of PET for Japan until the import ban increased prices and reduced availability. The American market is stepping in and is driving the expansion of PET and MEG facilities, which should be opera- tional in 2020/2021. According to market experts from ICIS, the new capacity is less for the local market and more for export to Asia. Effects outside China Meanwhile, in other countries the rubbish tips are piling up. For example, the USA was one country that previously relied on exporting its post-consumer bottles rather than comprehensively expanding its recycling network. But Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the UK, among others, are also facing their own rubbish mountains. The background to this is that recy- cling the material was not economic, especially when raw material prices were low. The necessity of investing in expensive recycling works was not a consideration from an economic point of view. But the U-turn in Chinese import behaviour could force the industrialised nations to make changes as well. This is already visible in cash flow. In Australia, for example, many companies paid councils to take their recyclable waste for selling on to China; now these councils must find the money themselves to start up a collection. Not the most sustainable but the simplest solution is to export the material to other countries. Shipments of plastic waste have actually already increased to South-East Asian countries like Malay- sia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand. For example, New Zealand’s exports to Malaysia in April were five times as great this year as in the comparable period in 2017. Not everyone views this positively. “Every country should recycle its own waste itself”, says Alan Ou from Boretech. In China, our government campaigns fiercely for environmental issues and other countries should do this too.” Kurt Pichlmann, Erema, is equally impressed by this initiative from the Chinese government. “I am convinced that the import ban is the way forward. Because of increasing labour costs and environmental impacts, China cannot produce cheaply in the long term. The import ban is simply a catalyst.” Oct. 24-26,2018, Mumbai German Technology