Recycling Volatility Has Moved Out of the Plant and Into the C-Suite
For packaging converters, recycling has traditionally been viewed as a solved problem. Pre-consumer OCC and DLK are clean, consistent, and widely used by paper mills. As long as bales moved offsite, few executives gave recycling much strategic attention.
But today, volatility in recovered fiber markets is turning what was once a background function in the plant into an important source of financial and operational exposure. Nowadays it’s one that increasingly belongs in executive and board-level conversations.
The Old Assumption Is Broken
For decades, recycling programs at box plants were built around three familiar beliefs:
- Clean OCC and DLK always have a home somewhere
- Pricing fluctuates, but demand is usually stable
- Recycling is an operational function, not strategic
Those assumptions held when regional mill capacity was broader, freight was predictable, and quality standards were forgiving.
What’s Actually Changed In The Recycling Market
Over the past several years, North America has seen dozens of paper mill closures, consolidations, or paper grade conversions, particularly impacting recycled fiber demand. Fewer mills now control more buying power and they are becoming increasingly selective.
“Converters assume that their clean scrap and trim waste guarantees movement,” says Don Gaines, of Mid America Paper Recycling. “But when mill options shrink, even high-quality material needs a clear plan behind it.”
At the same time, scrap corrugated pricing has become markedly more volatile. According to Fastmarkets RISI data, OCC prices have experienced 40–50% year-over-year swings in recent market cycles, creating planning challenges for packaging converters accustomed to stability.
Freight volatility has also compounded the issue. Truckload rates increased more than 30% between 2020 and 2022, and while rates have moderated this past year, availability and scheduling remain inconsistent. Missed pickups, staged trailers, and emergency hauling quietly erode operating margins.
For one box manufacturer customer in Colorado, their scrap volumes dramatically increased alongside production. Prior to working with MAPR, the company self-hauled material every three weeks, leased storage trailers, and absorbed labor costs tied to unloading and transport, which are hidden expenses that scaled with volume rather than efficiency.
MAPR helped them redesign bale weights, loading patterns, and outbound logistics, enabling mill-direct shipments of their waste. The result: approximately $400 saved per load, without reducing throughput or staffing increases.
Why This Matters To Leadership
These unexpected costs accumulate quietly and often hit logistics or operations budgets, but don’t always show up on recycling reports. The most resilient high-volume packaging converters now manage recycling itself as a supply chain, not a disposal function. That means focusing more on waste sorting and handling, bale quality, mill outlet flexibility, internal dock-side logistics and storage, plus continuous review as production changes.
Executive Leadership Takeaway
Recycling volatility is no longer cyclical, it’s structural. For packaging converters generating large volumes of pre-consumer scrap, treating recycling as a managed supply chain is now a form of risk management, with companywide implications. “The important thing to remember is that volatility doesn’t punish box plants who plan for it,” Gaines says. “It punishes the ones who assume their scrap will always move the way it used to.”
What You Can Do Next
For board converters generating large volumes of pre-consumer scrap, recycling volatility doesn’t have to translate into disruption or margin erosion. But it does require visibility. The first step is understanding how your current recycling program would perform if conditions change, not just when markets are stable.
That means discussing these practical questions with your leadership team:
- Do bale quality, weights, and loading patterns align with current mill expectations?
- How dependent is your operation on a single mill outlet?
- What happens at the dock if a pickup is missed, delayed or a load is rejected at the mill?
- Where are hidden labor, freight, or scrap storage costs accumulating in your plants?
Mid America Paper Recycling works with packaging converters across North America to evaluate recycling programs as operating systems, not just disposal arrangements. Our team helps identify where risk is building and where small adjustments can improve resilience, efficiency, and financial performance.
If you’d like a starting point, we offer a free online waste audit that allows you to quickly assess how your recycling program is structured today and where potential vulnerabilities may exist.
For a deeper conversation, our recycling brokerage experts are also available for free one-on-one consultations to review your operation, answer questions, and discuss whether your current approach is positioned to withstand ongoing market volatility.
Because in today’s recovered fiber market, the most expensive risk is assuming your recycling program will keep working the way it always has.
