The Washington-based Recycled Materials Association (ReMA) has been tracking a decline in recovered paper exports from the U.S. that shaped the 2023 market and has sustained throughout this year. Although China’s door is again slightly open to imports that meet specific standards, a combination of its withdrawal from the market and adjustments by U.S. mills to accept more grades of recovered paper has caused at least a temporary change in the import-export balance. In Europe, the shrinking Chinese market has been a factor, but in the past two years, that trend has been offset by different geopolitical and recycling market circumstances that have created a surplus of recovered paper on a continent that now has a higher volume moving offshore. …The increase in global recovered paper trade from Europe counters a trend seen in the U.S., where recovered paper exports dropped 18 percent last year and continue to fall in early 2024, according to ReMA.