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THE GLOBAL FLEXIBLE PACKAGING
MARKET, NOW AND 2015 , PIRA, BRUSSELS 2005
PIRA, Brussels 2005 Flexible Packaging 2005
PIRA 5th International Conference
19th-20th October 2005, Brussels Belgium
Out of a total consumption of plastics in the world estimated at
200 million tons in 2005, for plastics that take concrete shapes,
exclusive of polymers in liquid form for paints, adhesives and binders,
films are a very large segment, about 50 million tons, dominated
by commodity plastics, essentially PE and PP, together about 33 million
tons.
A tentative summary of the estimates for global film consumption
arrived at in this report gives, for 2005, in tons:
World consumption of films in 2005, in thousands of tons:
| Of which PE-LD films |
11 000 |
| PE-LLD
films |
13 000 |
| PE-HD
films |
9 000 |
| Of which OPP/BOPP films |
3 700 |
| Cast
PP films |
1 100 |
| PVC |
800 |
| PS |
600 |
| PET, PETG, PEN |
2 200 |
| Polyamides OPA |
120 |
| Polyamides cast and coex |
200 |
| Cellophane |
70 |
| Aluminium foil |
1 500 |
| Multilayer films |
7 500 |
| EVA higher grades |
600 |
| Ionomers |
120 |
| EVOH |
90 |
| PVDC |
135 |
| Biodegradable films |
70 |
| Polyvinyl butyral |
160 |
Total world plastic film consumption
Out of the grand total rounded above, the aluminium foil and the
multilayers that are double counted and include materials that are
not plastics, like papers, should be subtracted, but they are not
a very large tonnage.
Therefore, the total world plastic films consumption arrived
at is close to 50 million tons, which is, by far, the
very largest end-use in the total world plastics of 200 million
tons, or about one fourth of the total.
This very high film proportion in the total is much weighed by the
polyolefin films, and particularly PE. Conversely, films are the
major use of PE, all types, about half of these plastics, and polyethylenes
are the very largest plastics in world total, about 70 million tons
out of 200 million tons.
Geographical /economical consumption split
Out of these totals, the consumption split between the major geographical/economical
areas of the world closely follows that of the plastics total, in
the same proportions as for the main commodities.
These relative proportions are blurring, as more and more films
are transported over deep sea international trade, reels are easy
to carry. Film consumption as a rule means where the raw materials
are extruded, and not where they end up for use by industrial or
distribution customers.
As a very general rule of thumb, the film consumption in Europe
and in North America are about equivalent, and together account for
about 60 % of total world consumption, dwindling down to 50 % in
the next five-ten years.
The relative consumption of North America and Europe is more important
for the higher value materials and films, multilayers, barriers, metallized,
as most of the rest of the world is less sophisticated and diversified,
but it is catching up very fast.
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