Global production capacity for bioplastics will reach 800,000 tonnes per year by 2020, with at least seven sites having capacity of 50,000 tonnes per year, according to Nova Institute.
The results come from the a new bioplastics survey, the ‘Market Study on Bio-based Polymers and Plastics in the World', which will be published in January 2013 and is based on a survey of all the major bioplastics producers worldwide.
According to Nova, the research into lactic acid producers – the preliminary stage of PLA production – revealed that production capacity to meet concrete requests from customers could even rise to roughly 950,000 tonnes per year.
Michael Carus, managing director of nova-Institute, said in a statement: “For the very first time we have robust market data about worldwide PLA production capacity. These are considerably higher than in previous studies, which did not cover all producers. Forecasts of 800,000 or even 950,000 tonnes per year by 2020 show that PLA is definitely a polymer for the future.”
The largest producer is currently NatureWorks, which has a capacity of 140,000 tonnes per year.