Page 47 - Packaging News Magazine Jan-Feb 2019

January-February 2019
www.packagingnews.com.au
BIOPLASTICS UPDATE
47
TERMS OF REFERENCE
With brands increasingly keen to demonstrate their environmental credentials, the EuBP’s prediction that bio-based materials will account for 10 per cent (5m tonnes) of the European plastics packaging market by 2030 has a justifiable ring of confidence about it. Hopefully too by then much of the confusion that continues to dog the sector will have been clarified.
EuBP deputy MD Kristy-Barbara Lange believes this process is well underway. “So, we already have about one per cent of the market. Major brand owners are really start- ing to switch over to it: IKEA and Lego are recent high-profile examples. There are new bio-based materials being introduced all the time. The volumes may not be big right now, but we’re looking ten years ahead.
“What we see down the road is a market for bio-based durable plastic drop-ins and a limited market for compostable products. In the meantime, we’re getting better at explaining their differences and the rationale for each of them. Maybe it’s not so much saying bio, bio, bio – but rather that this product saves emissions, for example. Maybe the selling point is not so much what it is but what it achieves.”
The 14th European Bioplastics con- ference takes place on 3 – 4 Decem- ber 2019 at the Titanic Chaussee Hotel, Berlin. ■
Des King is a UK-based packaging journalist and a member of the International Packaging Press Organisation (IPPO).
ABOVE: Total Corbion PLA plant (Rayong, Thailand).
OPPOSITE PAGE: TOP: Two Farmers crisps in duplex compostable bag (Parkside Flexibles).
OPPOSITE PAGE: BELOW: SIPP Coffee in Clay Coated Triplex compostable pouches (Parkside Flexibles).