Hope is a prominent feeling among plastics recyclers at Fakuma: hope that the market will recover soon and hope that next year will bring an expected boom.
Of those at the trade show in Friedrichshafen, Germany, most say they are waiting for next year's K show to announce new products or share more details about the company's operations.
Italy-based manufacturer of melt filters for plastics recycling Fimic srl shares the feeling. Paolo Stocco, regional sales manager, told Sustainable Plastics that the show has been slow, in much the same way that the year has been slow for the German plastics recycling industry, the market he oversees.
"Honestly, the first day was really dead. Today, the second day, we can see some more people coming. We already had a couple of good meetings. So, we expect more but not a lot because, as everybody knows, the market is a little bit slow at the moment."
Nonetheless, it is important to be at Fakuma because the show is an "important indicator of the health of the German market," Stocco added. That market, alongside the entire recycling industry, has been negatively affected by low recyclate prices. German companies, in particular, are further affected by high energy bills, which remains a major competitive disadvantage.
"Germany is suffering historical macroeconomic conditions. The price of energy, for example, is really having an impact on German companies. But I believe Germans have a very strong reaction capacity. I'm sure they will come back. It might take some time. We all hope that by the K show next year the situation will be better."
Earlier this month, the German mechanical engineering industry association VDMA expressed similar hopes of recovery in time for K.