Berlin, 6 December 2022 – European Bioplastics presented today at the 17th EUBP Conference a positive outlook for the global bioplastics industry. After a stagnation of the overall plastics production in 2020, mainly due to challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, there is now a new momentum for global bioplastics production. Capacity of production is set to increase significantly from around 2.23 million tonnes in 2022 to approximately 6.3 million tonnes in 2027. The market data was compiled in cooperation with nova-Institute (Hürth, Germany).

“The positive development of bioplastics production capacity needs to be seen within the wider global context of a climate crisis, rising energy costs, and disrupted value chains. Yet, despite these challenges, bioplastics production capacity is growing. Once again, this shows the resilience and importance of our industry”, states Hasso von Pogrell, Managing Director of European Bioplastics (EUBP).

The global bioplastics production capacity is set to increase significantly from around 2.23 million tonnes in 2022 to 6.3 million tonnes in 2027. Bioplastic alternatives exist for almost every conventional plastic material and corresponding application. Due to a strong development of polymers, such as PHA (Polyhydroxyalkanoates), polylactic acid (PLA), biobased PAs (polyamides) as well as a steady growth of biobased Polypropylene (PP), the production capacity will continue to increase significantly and diversify within the next 5 years.

Packaging remains the largest field of application for bioplastics with 48 percent (1 million tonnes) of the total bioplastics market in 2022. The data also confirms that bioplastic materials are already being used in many other sectors, and the portfolio of applications continues to diversify. Segments, such as automotive and transport, agriculture and horticulture as well as electrics and electronics continue to increase moderately in their relative share over the next years.