Cardboard Commodity Market

Cardboard prices were erratic last year and the graph below illustrates this; the average price ranged between £77.50-£151.00 per tonne. These fluctuations in the market for exported cardboard is reflected in the price that we pay to our customers.

Beginning of 2022

At the start of the year, prices were healthy and growing gradually, this is partly due to the surging box demand that occurred in 2021. This caused an increase in price as the material became a more valuable commodity (Eminton, Surging Box Demand , 2021). This value was sustained until the summer months of 2022, in July the orders and prices fell significantly (Eminton, Orders and prices tumbling in used cardboard market, 2022).

Energy Prices

A correction in the market excessive growth caused a big fall in demand from the main importers of Cardboard – Southeast Asia, India and Europe. This was caused by high energy prices and changing consumer habits in their packaging meaning less cardboard was required. The mills that were still operating had no choice but to lower their prices to attract business from the small amount of demand (Doherty, 2022). This downturn followed on through into the autumn months, the main reason reported for the ongoing problems was the Chinese economy which impacted the demand overseas. The activity in terms of exports was low and so less packaging had been made and in turn less cardboard had been used (Eminton, Recyclers See Downturn In Plastics & Paper Markets, 2022). This coupled with the downtime that the European mills took orchestrated the crash in prices through autumn.

Christmas

An upturn in the last 2 months of the year was not reported on, a fair estimation would be that it was caused by the Christmas period which consistently brings an increased amount of paper and cardboard every year because of the tradition of shopping and gift wrapping in this country.

Source: (Lets Recycle , 2022)