European Bioplastics: Fivefold growth of the bioplastics market by 2016

An above-average positive development in bioplastics production capacity has made past projections obsolete. The market of around 1.2 million tonnes in 2011 will see a fivefold increase in production volumes by 2016 – to an anticipated almost 6 million tonnes. This is the result of the current market forecast, which the industry association European Bioplastics publishes annually in cooperation with the Institute for Bioplastics and Biocomposites from the University of Hannover. The worldwide production capacity for bioplastics will increase from around 1.2 million tonnes in 2011 to approximately 5.8 million tonnes by 2016. By far the strongest growth will be in the biobased, non-biodegradable bioplastics group. Especially the so-called ‘drop-in’ solutions, i.e. biobased versions of bulk plastics like PE and PET, that merely differ from their conventional counterparts in terms of their renewable raw material base, are building up large capacities. Leading the field is partially biobased PET, which is already accounting for approximately 40% of the global bioplastics production capacity. Partially biobased PET will continue to extend this lead to more than 4.6 million tonnes by 2016. That would correspond to 80% of the total bioplastics production capacity. Following PET is biobased PE with 250,000 tonnes, constituting more than 4% of the total production capacity (Press Release European Bioplastics, 10 October 2012).