Thanks Abullion, I didn't know about the plastics - interesting stuff.

It makes sense about you say the market wants - the raw material. I worked with a company that sold cedar logs to an outfit in the USA. That USA outfit stuffed them into shipping containers and shipped them to China. China manufactured saunas and shipped them back to the states. The states ships some of that finished product to Canada. Two trips across the Pacific and 3 countries and they can still make money at it. Crazy isn't it? The one big thing that makes the economics of all that work is the low labour rates and low worker protection/rights they have there compared to North America. They were paying a guy with a wood router to rout out each knot and defect and glue in another clear piece of wood to upgrade the value of the finished board. Our labour rates and loading could never make that pay.