Remade Scotland publish recyclate markets report

By Neil

August 8, 2008

Remade Scotland has recently published a report looking at the market for various recycled materials collected in Scotland.

The aim of the Recyclate Market Review for Scotland report is to assess the current recyclate arisings in Scotland and to assess the implications on the markets for each of the key materials for 2005/06.  The key aspects to be addressed in this report are:

• Market size – recovery of materials in both the municipal and commercial waste management sectors.
• Market analysis – what is the installed capacity for managing these recovered recyclates, what is the structure of the market?
• Local market issues – what local issues are arising over price, quality etc.?
• Key issues arising – what issues need to be taken into consideration in any further planning or policy setting activities

The report looked at the following materials:

• paper, glass, plastic, metal, tyres, wood, textiles, organics and WEEE

Suggested Actions

In order to meet the challenges of reaching Scotland’s 70% recycling and composting targets by 2025 a number of actions have been developed to overcome any perceived barriers related to the key issues highlighted by our analysis. These suggested actions are summarised below.

• Quality - There is a requirement for a consistent quality development programme for recovered materials supplied by Scottish local authorities.
• Prices - More research is required to ascertain the core reasons behind price disparity to ensure that local authorities are receiving comparable prices from the market.
• Capacity - Further information is required on market capacity.  Market capacity will be examined in closer detail for a range of materials in the Remade 2008 programme. A report on Treatment Capacity Requirements will be completed in December 2008.
• Competition - There is a need to acquire a greater understanding of service provision at a regional level and understand the competition for recovered materials in greater detail. The Remade programme for 2008 will address this issue in the Material Flows project.
• Markets - Markets for certain materials are still being developed. For core materials market development is based on economic analysis: for materials such as organics and textiles more research on diversification will be required.

Remade Scotland have also recently published their business plan for 2008-2011.

Both the report and the business plan can be downloaded from the Remade Scotland website

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