BIR Plastics committee looks at world markets.

The progress of a company at the cutting edge of recycling plastics from cars and electronic goods was detailed at the Plastics Roundtable in Milan.

Mike Biddle, founder and managing director of MBA Polymers Inc., a U.S.-based company, confirmed that his company had just started up a 40,000-metric-ton processing facility in China's Nansha Development Zone under a joint venture with Guangzhou Iron & Steel Enterprises. A plant with a similar processing capacity is also scheduled to come online early next year in Austria as part of a joint venture with Muller-Guttenbrunn GmbH. Biddle added: "We plan on expanding in Asia and Europe. I have investors lined up to build more plants."

MBA Polymers has invested more than $30 million in developing its technology. The process comprises: size reduction and liberation; separation of non-plastic items; separation of mixed plastics; final cleaning and sorting; and pelletization and/or compounding. According to Biddle, the company's approach also ensures the separation of different grades of plastics.

Roundtable delegates in Milan also heard several country-specific market reports. According to Surendra Borad of Belgium-based Gemini Corp. NV, upwards of 2 million metric tons of plastics are recycled each year in India--a country that consumes around 4.2 million metric tons of plastics per year. However, the plastic scrap import licenses of some 20 of the 30 Indian operations were due to come up for renewal at the end of October and extensions were not yet approved. He added, "About 6,000 metric tons of plastic scrap is being imported every month. If these licenses are not renewed, then the quantity will be reduced to about 3,000 metric tons per month."

BIR Plastics Committee Chairman Peter Daalder of Daly Plastics BV in The Netherlands reported that as of June 1 this year, Germany has implemented a ban on the landfilling of burnable and recyclable materials. The supply of some grades, such as mixed rigid plastics and dirty LDPE 60/40, had improved since the introduction of the ban, Daly said.

Reporting on the French, Spanish and Italian markets, Jacques Musa of France-based Soulier said a fall in secondary PET demand, particularly for bottles from household collections, could be attributed to over-stocking in the key Chinese market.

LME plastics trading had been reasonably active since polyethylene and polypropylene quotations had been introduced in May this year and prices had increased by some 50 percent, according to Giuseppe Lacchini of Cell-Data Information Systems, Italy. The LME was intending to begin trading in PVC and PET next year, he added.