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Waste & Recycling October 28, 2016 11:30:01 AM

New research report summarizes plastics industry activity in 2015

Carolina Curiel
ScrapMonster Author
The global plastics production has steadily increased over the past several years.

New research report summarizes plastics industry activity in 2015

EDGWARE (Scrap Monster): The global plastics production has increased by 4% from 311 million tonnes in 2014 to 322 million tonnes in 2015, says a new study report published by PlasticsEurope. According to the report titled ‘Plastics-the Facts 2016’, China has continued to be the leading plastics producer during 2015, followed by the European region. The report also provides detailed analysis of production and trade. It also highlights the contribution made by plastics industry to economic growth.

According to the report, the European plastics industry gives direct employment to over 1.5 million people in the Europe. The industry comprises of nearly 60,000 companies. The industry had a trade balance of over 16.5 billion euros during 2015 and had a turnover of more than 340 billion euros. The European plastics industry contributed close to 27.5 billion euros to public finances and welfare during the year.

The global plastics production has steadily increased over the past several years. The global plastics production totaled 322 million tonnes during 2015, rising by nearly 4% when matched with the production of 311 million tonnes during 2014. It must be noted that the global plastics production had totaled only 299 million tonnes in 2013. China was the largest producer of plastics materials with a share of more than 27%. The European plastics industry ranked second along with NAFTA region, each accounting for 18.5% share of the global market. The report states that plastics production has shown slight increase in 2016, but still stands below the pre-crisis level.

The European plastics demand totaled 49 million tonnes in 2015. This includes plastic materials such as thermoplastics and polyurethanes and other plastics such as thermosets, adhesives, coatings and sealants. According to data, 70% of the demand was concentrated in six countries-Germany, Italy, France, Spain, the UK and Poland. The European country with the highest demand was Germany, which accounted for 24.6% of the total plastics demand in the Europe. The other countries that reported high plastics demand were Italy (14.3%), France (9.6%), Spain (7.7%), the UK (7.5%) and Poland (6.3%).

The packaging sector accounted for 39.9% of the European plastics demand, closely followed by building and construction (19.7%), automotive (8.9%), electrical and electronics (5.8%) and agriculture (3.3%).

The report notes that 25.8 million tonnes of post-consumer plastics waste ended up in the official waste streams in 2014. The figure registered 1% increase over the previous year. Out of this, 69.2% was recovered through recycling and energy recovery processes while the remaining 30.8% still ended up in landfills.

The European plastics industry maintained a positive trade balance of more than Euro 16.5 billion in 2015. The top export trading partners outside of EU region by value during the year were Turkey (13.3%), China (12.6%) and the USA (11.7%). The key import partners during the year were the USA (25.4%), Saudi Arabia (12.9%) and South Korea (12.4%).

The data provided in the report was collected jointly by PlasticsEurope and the European Association of Plastics Recycling and Recovery Organizations (EPRO). It includes data for EU-28 plus Norway and Switzerland.

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