The recycled plastic market is characterised by a lack of standardisation, given that recycled plastic is derived from waste. The new post-consumer plastic bottle price assessments bring crucial market insight and price transparency based on S&P Global Platts' deep experience building independent and robust assessment methodologies. This new transparency will help increase market participants' understanding of how recycled plastics are evolving into tradable commodities.
Ben Brooks, Head of Plastics Recycling Price Reporting, S&P Global Platts said: "Our new recycled plastic assessments offer market participants crucial price transparency that helps develop open and fair markets at a time when the supply of quality recycled plastics raw material is their top challenge. US legislators are considering proposals that mandate radical change to minimum recycled plastic content, which will only increase the need for independent pricing based on a robust methodology."
Proposed US legislation (Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act of 2020), unveiled in February 2020, aims to create a nation-wide container-deposit system whereby producers will be required to fund waste and recycling systems through an Extended Producer Responsibility Program. This aims to remove the burden of waste collection and recycling from the taxpayers and states, and shift it to the producer companies. The Act proposes incremental increases in the minimum recycled content in food-service products to 25% by 2025 (which broadly matches European standard), with a three-year moratorium on new polymer-resin plant construction and feedstocks.
