Market Report

Fake flat
 

NL-Tilburg, October 19th 2025
 

After his winning cycling tour in 1985, Dutch cycling star Gerrie Kneteman referred to parts of the route as “false flat”, expressing that what appeared to be a flat road actually had a considerable gradient. You don't think it's going uphill until you reach the top and look back.

In the opposite sense, you could look at the waste paper market in the same way. The market appears stable, but the “false decline” seems to have increased with each week of gently falling prices when you look back.

This past week, Asian buyers again lowered their prices for occ (kls) by $5 per tonne. The reason for this is said to be that Chinese buyers are no longer importing (dry) recycled pulp because it contains too much contamination. That is an understatement, because it has been known for much longer that this product is in fact simply finely shredded cardboard, the contamination of which has been reduced to such a fine level by the shredding process that it is barely visible. But it is still there. A kind of MRF mixed paper. It looks nice on the outside, because all the contamination has been plucked from the outside of the bales, but it is still there. So, since 2018, very expensive occ (cardboard) has been bought in China. That now seems to be over, so (mainly American) suppliers might have lost a good sales channel, which is immediately reflected in the price. So, in South-East Asia, prices were reduced by $5 per tonne. Not much, really, if you were to cautiously speak of oversupply, but it remains to be seen what will happen in India. Because of Divali, many buyers there were already absent this week, or pretended to be absent. In any case, there was no willingness to buy, but the news about the stop of recycled pulp going to China was widely shared. And also what the effect would be on the world market price of occ: $10 per tonne. That remains to be seen, now South-East Asia has only gone down £5 and there were no prices to be noted in India. This may not become clear next week either, because Divali is still being celebrated until the 23rd, so there will be little or no buying next week either.   

In Southern Europe, some shipping companies reported that they would be increasing their container rates, with some even talking about “doubling” them. This, in addition to the lower CIF prices for occ, would take an extra bite out of the ex-works selling price of cardboard in export. Immediately, there were rumours from local European mill buyers who were already considering price reductions for occ/cardboard of € 10 per


tonne and did not want to wait until the end of the month to do so. The good news is that such reports have not yet been heard in North-West Europe and that some shipping companies are even quoting lower container rates here, so that the feeling of a “false decline” still persists: price reductions offset by lower container rates. The US Dollar has no influence at the moment, as the EUR/USD exchange rate has been hovering around 1.17 for a week.

All other grades of recovered paper are still more or less unchanged, but it must be said that sales are not going smoothly. There are considerable stocks of recovered paper in the paper and cardboard industry and there is a lot of “cherry-picking” going on. Only the best is good enough, in other words. This is also a market signal. 

Price indication

Price indication in Europe for low grades of recovered paper, sorted, baled and ex works are now between € 60 and € 80 per tonne. These prices are depending on quality, available volume, region and loaded weight.

Look here at the Price chart >> 
  
The price chart gives an indication of the price  of mixed paper, separately collected, in the Netherlands free delivered mill over the last 10 years.
Scrolling over the top of the columns gives the exact price indication in Euro's per ton.