Due to the stagnation affecting German industry, in two years – from 2021 to 2023 – plastics production in Germany has plummeted by -17% and processing by -8.5%.

Weighing on the sector are the rising costs of energy and raw materials, frequent changes in policy objectives and increasing bureaucracy, factors that discourage the investments needed to modernise and expand plants, which are also crucial for a transition to a circular economy.

At industry level, between 2021 and 2023, plastics use grew by +15% inautomotive, but fell by -12.3% in packaging, a sign of a possible reduction in overall volumes or a change in material preferences. Consumption in construction also declined (-17.3%).

Among the data contained in the study is the incidence of plastics produced from non-fossil materials (including recyclates), which reached 18.9% of the total, up from 16.3% in 2021. Last year, some 1.93 million tonnes of recyclate from post-consumer and post-industrial waste were used, as well as 0.5 million tonnes of by-products, or 15% of the total. However, almost 3.6 million tonnes of plastics continue to be disposed of through energy recovery.

Source: https://polimerica.it/articolo.asp?id=32895