Bioplastic Market is Set to Soar Over the Next Five Years

Allied Market Research, a marketing research team has released a new and exciting report on Bioplastics and their development in popularity among the packaging industry. Reports indicate that the global market for bioplastics would grow at compounded annual growth rate of 14.8% to become a USD 30.8 billion market by 2020. If you have not already done so, and you are in packaging design, now is the time to integrate bioplastics into your products.

Among the key factors propelling the growth of bioplastics in the packaging industry are the rising environmental awareness among consumers. As a professional in packaging design, you may already know rigid plastic packaging applications are forecast to account for more than 40% of the market revenue by 2020.

Bioplastics are plastics that are produced from biomass. Biomass are renewable feedstocks, such as corn, sugarcane and cellulose. Not only is there a wide availability of renewable feedstocks, part of what is boosting the market across the globe is the fact that bio-based plastics feature a smaller carbon footprint compared to fossil-based materials. The negative drawback is the high production costs of bioplastics, which make them more costly to designers in the packaging industry. Most packaging design members would agree that it’s better to spend the cost in preservation, than to pay the toll in clean-up for the next generation.

The consumption of what is referred to as “drop-in” bioplastics (Bio-PE, Bio-PET 30, Bio-PA), bioplastics are non-biodegradable materials, derived from renewable raw materials offering identical technical properties to their fossil counterparts (PE, PET and PA, among others). These Drop-in bioplastics will continue to dominate the overall bioplastics market through 2020.

Drop-in bioplastics offer a number of undeniable advantages including low-risk environmental choices, technical properties and manufacturing processes are already familiar to the value chain. So the packaging industry would not have to worry about new manufacturing machinery.

Here are some important findings regarding bioplastics and its growth among the packaging industry:

•             Rigid plastics are expected to be the fastest growing application segment, at a CAGR of 31.8%.

•             Europe was the highest consumer of bioplastics, whereas Asia Pacific was the largest producer    in 2014.

•             Bio-PET 30 segment is expected to experience volume growth of 25.7%.

•             Polyesters and starch blends collectively account one-third of the overall biodegradable bioplastic in 2014.

It is exciting to think of all the impact bioplastics will bring to the packaging industry. Our packaging design team is talented at designing the most innovative packaging to help retailers and product manufacturers sell their products, while keeping them safely protected. If you would like to learn more on how our packaging design staff can utilize bioplastics in your next product package, contact us today at 1-877-959-3591.