A recent article in Plastics Today highlights future trends in the bioplastics industry:

  • “Stellar” Growth: experts forecast growth in global bioplastics production capacity of over 400% through 2018
  • Jobs – there will be more jobs in bioplastics (where there’s growth, there’s jobs)
  • Biorefineries – similar to how oil refineries make numerous products from fossil fuels, biorefineries are diversifying and adding advanced biochemicals and bioplastics to their production of advanced biofuels.
  • Asia as major producer – the region accounted for 51.4% of global bioplastics production capacity in 2013, and most of the future bioplastics projects globally are planned for Thailand, India, and China
  • Solving end-of-life issues – figuring out recycling options for bioplastics continues to be a challenge that is misunderstood. Can it be recycled? How? With what? Where (specifically) is it compostable? This challenge is being figured out, albeit slowly, and remains one of the top barriers to significant (sustainable) adoption of bioplastics worldwide.
Posted in Blog, Blog