Consumption of plastics

In Europe total consumption of plastic foam insulation for 1992 was 29 x 10 m (>12 billion board ft) withHttle or no growth seen from 1991. AU products were expected to grow by an average of 1% due primarily to the continued effects of the economic recession. 

Woddwide consumption of plasticizers is estimated at 3.5 x 10 t (31), and is of the order of 1 million tons in Western Europe (Eig. 7 Table 4). The distribution of plasticizers into various appHcations is as foUows 27%, wine and cable covering 23%, extmsion/profile 17%, film and sheet 13%, coated fabrics 12%, wall covering and 8%, undersealing/coating. 

Applications of plastics in agriculture and horticulture and technical and environmental requirements for products used in these sectors are examined. Italian standards relating to the use of plastics in these applications are reviewed, and statistics are presented for Italian, West European and world consumption of plastics in agriculture in 1995. 

Table 2.10 displays the consumption of the major thermoplastics in 2005 for the three main geographic areas, together with market shares and average annual growth rates (AAGR). These identified thermoplastics represent roughly 70% of the overall global consumption of plastics. 

Nearly 3 million tonnes of plastics are consumed by this sector, accounting for 7.4% of all plastics. The pipes and tube sector is roughly ranked like the automotive and transportation or electricity and electronics sectors for the consumption of plastics. 

At present, the consumption of plastics for matrices is roughly estimated at ... 

Global consumption of plastics is roughly 170 million tonnes per annum, which is ... 

The high consumption of plastics in developed countries (over 50 million tons in the year 2001 and an increase of 4% year-1 is expected) explains the great interest for exploitation of post-consumer plastics. Taking into account that the environmental regulations prohibit their exploitation by combustion, thermal decomposition or pyrolysis is one of the procedures for recycling plastic with best perspectives for obtaining feedstock and fuel. 

Figure 1-2. Worldwide consumption of plastics from 1950 to 2010 (Szabo 2002, reprinted courtesy of Rapra Technology, Ltd.).

The best known products of macromolecular chemistry are plastics, synthetic rubber and fibres. The world average per capita consumption of plastics exceeded 8 kg (44 kg in the USA and in Japan). The production of synthetic fibres and rubber exceeds the production of the natural materials. A large proportion of these substances is produced by polymerization. 

Kiya-Oglu, N. V., Tsokolaeva, N. M., Stanovskaya, E. R. Trends in production and consumption of Plastic Foams. All-Union Conf. Polyurethanes, Vkdimir/USSR, 1979 (in Russian)... 

The plastic content of the MSW is 10 to 11 percent, amounting to about 40 billion pounds per year (Table 4), which is less than 50 percent of the fiber/ resin produced. However, this is a significant amount of plastics going into the landfill. This problem of increasing consumption of plastics and its share in MSW for Europe, Japan, and Australia is comparable to that of the United States. There are limited data on developing countries, but the growth rate for plastic consumption in China is very high, in the order of 20 percent per year. 

The above paragraphs show that today plastic materials are used in almost all areas of daily life. Accordingly, the production and transformation of plastics are major worldwide industries. Consumption of plastics in Western Europe is forecast to grow from 24.9 million tonnes in 1995 up to about 37 million tonnes in 2006,1 an annual growth rate of 4%. This prediction places plastics among the most important materials in the next century also. 

Table 1.1 summarizes the changes in total plastic consumption in Western Europe from 1992 to 1996.2 These data refer to the final market for plastic products consumed by end-users but they do not include sectors such as textile fibres, elastomers, coatings, or products in which plastics are present in small quantities, because these are not considered as plastic products. If non-plastic applications are also taken into account, the total plastic consumption in Western Europe in 1996 increases up to 33.4 million tonnes. By comparison, the consumption of plastics in the USA and Japan in 1995 were 33.9 and 11.3 million tonnes, respectively.3... 

Figure 1.2 illustrates plastic consumption in Western Europe by product for 1995,4 confirming that plastics are versatile materials which can be found in a wide range of products. The production and consumption of plastics have continuously increased over recent decades. The plastic consumption per capita in Western Europe has increased from 1 kg per inhabitant in 1960 to about 65 kg per inhabitant in 1995. 

Table 1.2 Consumption of plastics in Western Europe by resin (based on reference 2)...

Plastics and rubber are essential materials in today s industrialized societies. The consumption of plastics has grown by a factor of about 60 in the past 30 years, which has led to a corresponding increase in the generation of plastic wastes. One of the most valuable properties of plastics, their low density, is one of the major limitations in the recycling of plastic wastes. Thus, to recover one tonne of plastics it is necessary to collect about 20 000 plastic bottles. Plastic wastes are mainly found in municipal solid wastes (MSW). As a consequence of their low density, plastics account for just 8 wt% of the MSW, but this value increases to over 20% in volume terms. In spite of the great diversity of plastic materials, plastic wastes are made up of a relatively small number of polymers polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, polyvinyl chloride and polyethylene terephthalate. These resins account for more than 90% of total plastic wastes. 

Table IV. 1982-1988 Estimated Growth in Consumption of Plastic Resins...

Groiving environmental awareness has prompted plastics recycling programs in most developed countries. In spite of this, however, currently only some 5-25% of plastic waste is being recycled but, as worldwide consumption of plastics is set to grow, this will have to expand [B.83]. As shown in Tab. 8.8, plastics constitute about 8% by weight of all MRF materials. By volume this represents about 18% of which... 

Figure 16.2. The world consumption of plastic will grow from 121 million tons in 1995 to 151 million tons in 2000, or by 4.4% per annum [BCC, 1997],...

Figure 10.26. Consumption of plastic products per activity sector in 2009 in Europe [PLA]...

MUL 98] Mulder K., Sustainable production and consumption of plastics . Technological Forecasting and Social Change, vol. 58, pp. 105-124,1998. 

Fig. 6. World Consumption of Plastics by Volume. (Source DVR/Plastics FALLO.)...

---