CHICAGO-The Chicago Board of Trade is sticking to its schedule for beginning on-line cash trading in recycled commodities by this summer. The board intends to offer cash trading in glass, paper, metal cans and PET and HDPE scrap on a personal computer bulletin board system to subscribers. The system will allow plastics-industry users to track prices and deals for baled and loose bottles, pellets, flake and end products, and provide a system of dispute resolution.
``We are looking at an early-summer test of the system,'' said Michael Walsh, senior economist for CBOT. ``The test would be for about a month with some of the companies that have participated in the planning.''
If the test is successful, then a full-scale system, open to all subscribers, would open up in late summer, he said.
From now until the test begins, CBOT will continue to refine the parameters of the trading floor, including establishing what Walsh called ``best practices'' on commodities such as baled and loose post-consumer bottles.
``We won't define specific rules for materials,'' he said. ``Instead, subscribers would be able to customize deals within parameters such as color and contamination levels.''