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Steel Cans: The steel industry has been flooded by imported tin from China for the last few <br />years, driving down the value of our tin. We expect this trend to continue though Tin prices are <br />slowly increasing. <br />HDPE Plastic (Color and Natural) #2: This market has been depressed due to the low price of oil <br />—this will likely continue in 2018. China's National Sword Policy also may depress plastics <br />pricing —see impacts from National Sword for more details. <br />PET Plastic (#1): Similar to HDPE, PET plastics is depressed due to the low price of oil. There also <br />may be impacts from National Sword on PET pricing. <br />Tubs and lids (#5 and #4 rigid plastics): Due to China's National Sword pricing we have seen <br />these prices fall in the past year, after they were already low due to low oil pricing. We expect <br />this trend to continue. <br />Glass: Prices paid for glass remain very low in 2016. The existence of only one processing <br />facility for glass in Minnesota means that the supply of glass is still as high as or higher than the <br />capacity of the local market to process and sell it. As a result, while Eureka is still able to sell <br />and recycle the glass here in a local market the cost of processing and shipping that mixed glass <br />to Strategic Materials Inc. (SMI) exceeds the price paid for it. While the economic value of glass <br />may currently be low there are other benefits to consider. The environmental benefits created <br />by recycling glass are significant as glass can be recycled infinitely creating more benefit each <br />time. In addition, when recycled locally glass supports local economic development and jobs. <br />This shows that despite the currently prices being paid for recycled glass it is still a net positive <br />material. <br />Why does recycling glass matter? <br />Without immediate planning and action, some of Minnesota's recycled glass will end up in <br />landfills or dropped from programs all together, and without a long-term solution that requires <br />responsibility and some investment from producers, like bottle deposit legislation, glass may <br />cease to be recycled at all. Glass collected for recycling that needlessly ends up in a landfill will <br />end up costing the cities and their residents more money while reducing their recycling <br />programs' environmental benefits. <br />There are significant, undisputable environmental and economic benefits achieved from <br />recycling glass. These include energy savings, reduction of air and water pollution, and a <br />reduced need to mine new resources. Furthermore, state, municipal and environmental <br />advocates agree that environmental benefits reduce dramatically the further we stray from the <br />highest and best use of recycled glass, so glass bottles recycled into glass bottles should be the <br />primary goal and then the next best markets for the smaller glass and fines need to be <br />developed. These environmental impacts are the reason Eureka Recycling has been committed <br />to finding a solution to keep bottle -to -bottle recycling viable despite changes in collection <br />methods. <br />10 <br />