Category Archives: Market Conditions

Taking A Look at China After the National Sword

For nearly three decades, the U.S. has been shipping their recyclables to China. It was a mutually beneficial relationship born from the U.S.’s overproduction of single use plastics and China’s need for raw materials. (more…)
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The Recycling Industry Cannot Waste Its Opportunity

While the prices for recycled commodities remain low, it’s clear that the recycling industry will persist—even in times when the consumer economy may be in recession. There has been a growing pessimism in the wake of the Chinese National Sword Policy over the economic viability of recycling, but experts in the financial industry bet on…
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Single-Stream vs. Dual-Stream Recycling and Rising Purity Standards Abroad

For generations like Millennials and Gen-Z, single-stream recycling may be so routine that it’s impossible to imagine an alternative. But in the long lifespan of recycling, single-stream is still very new to the game. Single-stream recycling was implemented in the U.S. in the 1990’s with goals to decrease collection costs for recyclers and increase the…
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Wrapping Up Amazon’s Packing Problem as Ecommerce Grows

Ecommerce is increasing year over year, making up 15% of the retail market in 2018 and more significantly, representing more than half of retail sales growth since 2008. And it’s probably not surprising that Amazon makes up nearly 50% of the entire ecommerce market. (more…)
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