Welcome to the Plastics Weekly, NEO’s regular news monitoring of the plastics industry.
Every Monday, we publish a roundup of the top developments in plastics and sustainability – from regulatory changes to company news.
This week’s highlights:
- U.S. oil consumption is propelling a post-pandemic recovery, with a surge in petroleum use for products such as plastic, asphalt and other industrial needs. Plastic producers were well positioned at the start of the pandemic to take advantage of demand for more packaging, with an onslaught of plastic manufacturing along the U.S. Gulf Coast. (Bloomberg)
- UK waste exporters are welcoming Turkey’s apparenty U-turn on accepting shipments of plastic waste after previously banning 391510 polyethylene-based (PE-based) recycled plastic imports. Turkey is by far the largest destination for plastic waste from the UK, receiving up to 25,000 tonnes of monthly shipments. (bne IntelliNews)
- Virgin plastic pellets — the building blocks for everything from laundry baskets to plastic bottles — have seen a sharp jump in prices thanks to higher oil prices and a surge in demand. But those price increases haven’t been evenly distributed around the world, with the cost of polyethylene and polypropylene in Europe and the U.S. far outpacing equivalent plastics in Asia. (Bloomberg)
