Page 39 from: West Coast report + Plastics Special

PLASTICS SPECIAL

39recyclinginternational.com | July/August | 2019

Japan while Thailand manages around
25%. The outcome for Australia and
New Zealand is roughly 12% and 10%,
respectively. Meanwhile, African
nations like Ghana are recycling
approximately 5% of all plastic waste.
Figures for India are estimated to be
less than 10%.
Official Russian figures are vague; only
about 5% of all waste is recycled,
while the country landfills up to 90%
of its waste annually. Brazil is said to
recycle less than 2% of its plastics.
While Mexico’s overall recycling rate is
only 17%, the PET recycling rate is
over 57%.

HIGH DEMAND FOR PACKAGING
More than 60% of the PET bottles used
in Europe are recycled. However, the
recycling rate for bottles is only 25% in
developing countries like India while
China isn’t doing much better. On the
plus side, research firm Absolute
Market Insights reports that the global
recycled PET chips market will grow
4.5% during the 2018 – 2026 period.
More recycling capacity is likely to be
needed to cater to an ever-expanding
packaging market. Today, the packag-
ing sector generates US$ 900 billion
(EUR 805 billion) in annual revenues
worldwide, analysts at McKinsey &
Company point out. This is mostly
because of the big surge in food
packaging. They add that the demand
for meals-to-go will grow by 20.5%
between 2017 and 2022.
In fact, the whole packaging industry
is on track to keep growing at annual
rate of 3.1% until 2022. A full 70% of
this growth is coming from emerging
markets, McKinsey notes. While
growth in North America will increase
by 1.2% annually, markets in China
and India are growing at a rate of
5.2% and 5.8% annually. Analysts
note that retail sales in China are
already 80% higher than in the United
States.

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