New Report Examines Future of Packaging Materials

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The global consumer packaging market is worth around $400 billion, according to a new report by Research and Markets, Dublin, Ireland, titled The Packaging Materials Future Outlook: Key Trends in New Materials, Lightweighting, and Emerging Applications. The market has been relatively resilient in the face of economic ups and downs, but the current recession has taken its toll—2009 saw a downturn in market value. The new report pinpoints the reasons why, highlights consumer and industry trends, and takes a speculative look at the future.

"There is no doubt that consumer goods and consumer packaging are now facts of modern life, but the market is evolving and it is only prudent to understand the drivers of change and to take this understanding into planning for the future," the report notes.

The inexorable rise of plastic packaging has been the key market narrative, a rise driven by cost, convenience, and the entirely natural desire to do ever more with ever less, the report emphasizes. Plastic, however, is made from petrochemicals and raw materials are becoming increasingly costly. More significant still, plastic has relatively poor environmental credentials and is profoundly disliked by consumers, particularly in the developed West. Nevertheless, the plastics sector continues to receive the lion's share of R&D into new technology, although bioplastics and nano-enhanced super packaging are both some way from being commercially viable, the report continues.

Paper-based packaging is still the largest sector and has very strong environmental credentials, according to the report, Improving paper's barrier properties is a crucial step in increasing its viability as a packaging material. Glass has an enviable reputation as a premium material and as a packaging medium out of which food and drink taste better. Lightweighting is helping make glass easier to handle and more cost-effective in production and distribution. The rise of the aluminum beverage can has helped sustain the metal packaging sector in other areas.

The report assesses the relative weights of all of these trends and sets the packaging market in its context: social, economic, environmental and cultural. It examines this complex and dynamic market organically, from the viewpoints of suppliers and end-users and looks in detail at regional drivers, as developing markets increasingly shape the future.