The plastics market suffered a sharp slowdown in the first half of 2019. The prices of raw materials fell due to a couple of cause: the reduction of domestic market demand (especially in the automotive sector) accompanied by large volumes of products from extra import EU available at very competitive prices. In all sectors, recycled plastics are capturing the attention of buyers: in some cases, as for the R-PET food grade, the market value of the recycled product has exceeded that of the first choice virgin.

This information can be deduced by analysing the market data collected by the PlasticFinder platform (www.plasticfinder.it), the first European marketplace dedicated to the sale of plastics.

“Thousands of unique daily visitors, over 1,300 registered business users, regular daily trading, strong growth in turnover and margin compared to the same period of 2018", says Stefano Chiaramondia, one of the founders and president of the Milanese start-up, "make us understand that PlasticFinder has filled with opportunities a space that the market left unprotected, providing a service for the re-entry on the market of surplus stock coming from the entire chain (producers/distributors/processors) so that they can find a new use".

 
An interesting figure that emerges from the volumes transacted on the platform is the exponential increase in recycled and regenerated products: in the first 3 months of 2019 the entire quantity of 2018 has already been exceeded.

"The concept of ReCycle touches the processing industry both in terms of its processing by-products - which if well managed can be new raw material for compounders and other transformers - and for the use of recycled plastic as a raw material," continues Chiaramondia.

“Today it is difficult to find on the market an expert interlocutor in the distribution of recycled plastics who can advise and help testing materials. Over time, PlasticFinder has become a real reference both for those who produce and for those looking for these recycled materials such as PET flakes, PP, PE-PP, HDPE, PS as well as technopolymers such as ABS, PC, PA, PMMA, PP etc.", Chiaramondia underlines.

“Many companies active in the regeneration of plastic materials come to us for help in channeling and selling their products appropriately, so much so that we have already started a certification process for these types of products on our portal, convinced as we are that this can contribute to the transparency of transactions and to the promotion of a crucial aspect of the circular economy".
 
PlasticFinder has since long activated the PlasticFinder Wiki pages, a free-content online encyclopedia containing information relating to the world of thermoplastics, from the main properties to commercial brands, up to the manufacturers and distributors.

"We realize the usefulness of this proposal", Chiaramondia continues, "because every day hundreds of visitors consult the Wiki pages to quickly find technical and commercial information on the producers and distributors of a certain polymer… and we are thinking of completing them with a reference to average market prices, which we can obtain more and more reliably not from telephone interviews or market surveys, but from the actual publication values ​​of the sales advertisements and even more from all the closing of real transactions on the platform".

Visit the PlasticFinder WIKI page to find out all about manufacturers and distributors: https://www.plasticfinder.it/wiki-plastic-finder