Industrial End Use Applications

Abstract

Plastics remain the material of choice for packaging, increasingly substituting for other more traditional materials because they are lightweight, flexible, and easy to process. Packaging constitutes the single largest end use for plastic materials, in 2010 accounting for approximately 34% of all plastics used in the US and 37% of all plastics used in Europe. Plastics used in packaging are primarily the commodity resins: polypropylene (PP), polyethylene (PE), polystyrene (PS), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Semi-commodity nylon 6 (PA6) is an important exception, because film for food (mostly meat) packaging is a major market for this polymer. Packaging has become the major market for plastics because plastics offer better protection against spoilage/breakage, display products more attractively than do conventional materials, are lighter in weight than traditionally used paper, glass, and metal products, and offer savings in freight costs (primarily fuel economy). The need for improved product performance, faster packaging speeds and downgauging is driving the development of leading edge, cost-effective packaging solutions.