Effects of Low Oil Prices
http://www.triplepundit.com/2015/04/plastic-recycling-suffers-from-ongoing-low-oil-price/
http://www.ptonline.com/articles/recycled-resin-prices-plummet
Even with price of oil plummeting and being very low at this time, alternative energy sources are still becoming more and more competitive in the market. This is not the case for the plastic industry. Particularly recycled plastic. Plastic recyclers are struggling to stay afloat. Why is this? PET (polyethylene terephthalate) or recycled plastic struggled from the start because most business use to think it was not as good as original plastic. Before the drop in oil prices, the decision to buy recycled was common because it was less costly than original made plastic. This is not the case now. Recycled plastic is currently more expensive that original plastic because oil used to originally make plastic is extremely low. Original plastic costs 67 cents per pound to manufacture and recycled plastic costs 72 cents per pound. Oil prices will rise again, but until than, using recycled products is the environmental friendly way to go, but this is just not reality for business making smart financial decisions. These plastic recycling business do need to stay afloat for the long run due to the inevitable rise of oil prices in the near future.
Interesting. I never really thought about the implications of low oil prices on recycling. This is troubling, as many companies will likely stop recycling because it is much more expensive. Hopefully these companies will make the morally right decision, and recycle. However, this is unlikely as they are trying to save as much money as possible. I can't really say that I would blame them for making that tough decision either.
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