How to sell waste plastics in Europe

Sort to a specification a recycler can buy, bale and document it, then place it with mechanical recyclers by polymer, chemical recyclers or energy recovery -- with import rules gating what crosses the border. The route that pays depends on the polymer and the bale, and the routes run below.

If you control steady polyolefin volume, adding a machine turns you from a seller of feedstock into a producer of oil, with the analysis and buyers that follow. Read the pyrolysis plant and machine guide first, because the machine is the second decision, the oil buyer is the first.

The committed purchase of defined grades at defined volumes, the sorting plant's bankability, the trade's steady spine. Offtakes are the plant's salary contract.

Grade formulas tracking virgin polymer references with quality adjustments, the index translating the bale into the market's language. Plastics price like everything now, by formula.

Weight adjusted to agreed moisture baselines, the wet bale's illusion removed, the scale and the certificate agreeing. Dry arithmetic for wet cargo.

Multi-grade contracts catalogue each stream separately, the single paper carrying several prices, the structure suiting steady multi-stream sellers. One contract, many barrels.

Rejection clauses with umpire testing and repricing ladders, the reject being a discount negotiation rather than a funeral, the file deciding which. Rejection is a clause, not an ending.

Green-listed movement papers under the regulation, digitally filed, the OECD doors demanding near-single-polymer honesty, the file travelling with the freight. The paperwork is the border now.

Mixed bales trade into sorting and tolerant recycling at mixed prices, purity being the discount's direction, the sort being the sale's salary. Mixed is a price, not a wall.

The purity percentage where disposal becomes sale, the line moving with capacity and law, the sort crossing it profitably. The tip is where the yard becomes a business.

Against contracts and inventory, feedstock being bankable where offtakes exist, the trade's paper supporting its plants. Finance reads the bale's paperwork too.

Composition sheet, photographs, weights and origin statement, the bale's passport, buyers reading documents before pictures. Paper before pixels.

Brand sustainability programs buy feedstock indirectly through their recyclers, direct brand sales being rare and regulated, the chain being the channel. Sell to the chain, the brand reads the certificate.

Grade definitions with purity percentages, moisture limits and price formulas per polymer family, the bale contract being a specification document. Plastics trade on percentages, everything else is logistics.

With consistent graded volume buyers are findable, the broker's value being aggregation, mixed grades and market reach when your material is between markets. Simple streams direct, complex streams advised.

By polymer share, form and contamination against the standard grade names, a laboratory test on the first lots calibrating your eye. Honest grading is repeat pricing, optimism is a one-time discount.

One honest truckload with a full description and a fair price, the first lot auditioning both sides. Trading relationships are cargo by cargo, like everything in this book.

The serious ones do, yards, sorting and records, because their buyers audit them in turn, the chain of custody reaching into the yard. Tidy yard, tidy trade.

A baler, covered dry storage, a scale and a moisture meter, the four tools that turn loose material into priced lots. Everything beyond that is an upgrade bought with the first year's sorting margin.

Against the polymer family's traded range, adjusted for moisture, contamination and consistency, the same ladder every buyer climbs. Sellers who know the ladder negotiate the rungs, not the bottom.

Yes, at truckload scale with a consistent grade, direct sales work, with traders and brokers earning their fee on mixed or developing streams. Directness is a volume privilege, not a virtue.

Waste or coproduct status, transfer documents under the shipment rules where borders are crossed, and the analysis or grade description buyers price against. Plastic trades on status as much as on polymer.

Dry, separated and covered. Keep polymer families apart, keep bales off the ground under cover, and keep the moisture out, because wet stored plastic stays wet and sells at the wet weight. A tidy yard is literally money in this trade.

Not always, and washing is only worth it when the discount it removes exceeds the cost. Unwashed film sells into fewer doors at a discount; washed flake sells as a specification product. Run the sum per tonne before buying a wash line, not after.

Typically more than post-consumer of the same polymer, because it is clean and its history is known: buyers pay for the certainty. Production scrap in steady volume, kept dry and per polymer, is one of the easiest streams to place well.

Yes, silage and greenhouse film is a real traded stream, and collection schemes exist in several countries. The soil, sand and moisture in agri-film decide its grade, so baling it dry and clean changes which buyers will even open the door.

A laboratory chlorine test on a taken sample is the answer buyers accept, and quick checks exist for your own sorting line, including density and burning tests that indicate, not prove. When we place material the chlorine number comes from an accredited lab, because that is the figure the buyer contracts against.

It depends on the material, and that is the whole point of asking before selling. Clean single-polymer flake often earns more with mechanical buyers, while mixed polyolefins that fail their purity specs can be worth more as pyrolysis feedstock. We quote both routes against your analysis instead of guessing.

Lumps are the solidified start-up, purge and reject material from extrusion and moulding lines. Because they are usually one polymer and rarely contaminated, they are among the best feedstock forms around: sell them as they are to traders who grind, or regrind them yourself for a better price.

Yes. Purging and start-up shut-down material from PE and PP lines is single-polymer production scrap, not waste in most regimes, and it places well with both mechanical and chemical recyclers. Keep the polymers separate per line and note what each lot is.

Agglomerate, often traded as EVOA, is light plastic film that has been densified into flowable granulate. For warehouses of loose film it is the difference between hauling air and selling tonnage, and it is one of the few forms still acceptable for the OECD export routes that remain after the non-OECD ban.

Published feedstock quality guidelines work from roughly 85 percent PE and PP, a maximum of 7 percent moisture and a maximum of 15 percent total contamination, with PVC sorted out as far as possible because its chlorine corrodes plants and lands in the oil. Individual plants set their own limits, usually tighter, which is why we ask for the polymer mix and test results first.

Sorted single-polymer bales have traded in the low hundreds of euros per tonne and, in tight markets for clean polyolefins, well above that, while mixed or wet loads have traded close to zero. The range is wide because the price follows oil, virgin resin and local demand. A current analysis and a description of the sort are what get you a real number instead of a range.

Unwashed film sells, but into fewer doors and at a discount that often exceeds the washing cost. Buyers who wash themselves price the dirt and the water; buyers who do not simply refuse. If washing is an option for your volumes it is usually the single most profitable upgrade.

Polyolefins: LDPE, LLDPE, HDPE and PP, as film, rigids, regrind or production scrap. Mixed polyolefin streams work when the non-PVC share is high. PET and PA go to other processes, and PVC is the one to keep out, because its chlorine corrodes plants and lands in the oil.

It prices off oil yield per tonne, which runs roughly 60 to 85 percent for clean polyolefins, minus the cost of removing water, ash, metals and PVC. Dry, low-chlorine, repeatable material from a steady flow earns the top of the range; wet mixed bales earn the bottom or no bid at all.

Mixed polyolefin waste sells when the sorting has taken out PVC, wires and obvious residue, and when a chlorine test on the output backs the sort. Fully mixed municipal bales are a different product with a different and much smaller set of takers.

Not in the way fuel feedstocks need ISCC. What plants ask for is waste status handled correctly, a documented origin trail, test results on moisture, ash and chlorine, and a specification you can repeat load after load. Certification becomes relevant when the output oil is claimed as recycled under rules like the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation.

Exports to non-OECD countries are banned from 21 November 2026 under Regulation (EU) 2024/1157, and the remaining OECD routes require nearly single-polymer, well documented material. In practice European tonnage needs a European home, which is exactly the gap pyrolysis and chemical recycling plants are filling.

Intake systems differ, but the pattern is the same everywhere: consistency beats size. Plants contracting intake prefer a reliable several hundred tonnes a month on agreed specification over irregular large parcels of changing composition.

Send us the polymer mix, the form the material is in, the contamination picture, the monthly tonnage and any test results. We will tell you which pyrolysis routes fit, what the sorting still needs and what the tonnage is likely to clear against, including when the answer is that you are not ready yet.