Rising Costs, Growing Markets

Plastics China Technologies, Markets and Growth Strategies to 2008 71 

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Medium and rapidly growing markets in Asia Pacific, India, Eastern Europe, and Latin America is creating the need for local manufacturing capacity for large volume, low-margin commodity surfactants to provide a cost-effective supply chain in the face of rising transportation costs. 

In the US, plastics is the largest growing waste stream, rising from less than 5 wt% of total mnnicipal solid waste (MSW) in 1980 to over 11 wt% today. In 2001, of approximately 25 million tons of waste plastic, only abont 1 million tons were recycled [1], In California and elsewhere, waste plastic is a major issne dne to the growing cost of landfilling. Even plastic which is collected and separated often gets sent to landfills due to lack of a snfficient market [2]. While state law in California has set a recycle rate at 25%, the rate has actnally been declining in recent years, from 24.6% in 1995 to only 17.9% in 1999 [3]. 

With the growth of the vehicle electrification market, increasing environmental and government regulations, growing urbanization trends, rising fuel costs and an emerging customer market, there is a need to better understand the Li-ion battery that is, quite... 

Tomas Koch of McKinsey uses the specialty chemical market as an example Chinese producers increasingly supply the multinational companies that are moving plants [into China] and then dropping their traditional suppliers. They switch almost as soon as an adequate local source becomes available... Since rising imports to meet growing domestic demand will eventually draw Chinese entrepreneurs with low cost bases into the market for just about all chemicals, any decision to serve the country from faraway plants may be risky. ... 

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