The market for biobased and/or biodegradable plastics is constantly evolving. After several years of slow progress, industry and public awareness have enabled the market to turn a corner and enter a much more significant growth phase. This is mainly driven by a sharp increase in the supply of biodegradable polymers, which should ultimately bring total production capacity to 7.5 MT per year by 2028, i.e. more than 3 times current production capacity.
Biobased and/or biodegradable polymers should then account for over 2% of the world’s polymer production capacity.
An ever wider range of applications
The polymers with the biggest market shares today are PLA and the family of biobased polyamides, closely followed by PTT (partially biobased polyesters) and biobased PE.
Developments over the next few years should finally see an increase in the supply of PHAs
Nor is it surprising that the bulk of the bioplastics market is concentrated on packaging applications, both flexible and rigid, which today account for over half of all outlets.
One of the most promising areas is 3D printing, where bioplastics play a key role. Using biodegradable filaments, for example, this technology makes it possible to create customized objects with fascinating prospects for the manufacture of personalized parts in a variety of fields, from medicine to everyday objects.
Matching the end-of-life properties of bioplastics to their intendeduse is also increasingly sought after, for example in the agricultural plastics sector and in the biodegradability of certain materials.
Lastly, the technological innovations developed as part of our R&D projects will eventually enable us to obtain biobased plastics from waste and by-products, thus contributing to better waste management and reduced environmental impact.
