Recently I was privileged to be asked to present at the annual conference of The Recycling Association, held on 7 March in London. The topic was a fairly broad one - “The Plastic Market - How will it develop over the coming months & years”. One of the biggest challenges was only having 30 minutes to talk about such a broad topic - in all honesty we could have discussed the recent changes and likely future developments for a couple of hours and still only have scratched the surface. A copy of my presentation can be viewed and downloaded by clicking the button at the bottom of the page.
Some of the issues that have influenced the plastic market in the last couple of years include Brexit, Basel Convention amendments, increased agency regulatory action, scrutiny of PRN accreditations and consumer pressure on manufacturers for action on plastic content & recyclability.
Following an excellent earlier presentation on Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) by Phil Conran of 360 Environmental, I also touched on some of the challenges relating to plastics, as well as the broader potential impacts on how EPR could change or extinguish the role of many current industry stakeholders - from export traders to local recycling companies collecting and baling material.
However EPR turns out, my strong view is that the industry will have to become even more focussed on compliance, data management and reporting. Although uncomfortable to many commercial operators, transparency will become almost a given - whether that be transparency in how, where and when materials are reprocessed, transparency in material values, or open book cost structures.
I concluded my presentation by stressing that despite the many changes in the market since 2020, and the likely myriad of changes that will happen in the next 1-2 years, as always such challenges present lots of opportunities. One thing is for certain though - the sector will look very different in a year or two to what it looks like today, and everyone in the chain either needs to embrace the change or get out of the way. I also participated in a Panel Discussion to wrap the conference up. There were plenty of topics discussed during the session, including the PRN market and the possible directions that EPR might take us in.
At Oatley Resources we have undertaken a complete revamp of our systems and processes over the past 2 years, with the goal being to be able to meet and surpass new regulatory requirements and customer demands. It is an ongoing project which will need to constantly evolve as new regulations come into effect alongside new interpretations of existing requirements.
Feel free to comment on this news item or the presentation itself, ask any questions or contact us to discuss any issues or opportunities