Bioplastics, industry turnover to fall by 15% in 2024
Industry in difficulty: Asian competition, illegal and pseudo-reusable products weigh heavily. Assobioplastics and Biorepack: Italy leader in Europe, sector to defend
3' min read
3' min read
After a decade of steady growth between 2012 and 2022, the Italian bioplastics industry in the last two years has experienced a severe turnaround. Total turnover fell to EUR 704 million (-15% compared to 2023) despite the fact that volumes are slightly higher than the previous year (121,500 tonnes, +0.5% on 2023). The number of companies in the compostable bioplastics supply chain has suffered a slight setback: they are currently 278, divided into basic chemical producers and intermediates (7), granule producers and distributors (22), first transformation operators (189), and second transformation operators (60). There is also a slight decrease in the number of dedicated employees (i.e. those in companies in the sector who directly deal with the products that enter the compostable bioplastics chain): they are 2913, -2.2% compared to the previous year.
The picture emerges from an analysis by Plastic Consult presented during the 2nd Italian Compostable Bioplastics Forum organised by Assobioplastiche and the Biorepack consortium. And it confirms the sector's difficult moment from a production point of view, while the recycling of end-of-life products is growing and consolidating (in 2024, 57.8% of the wet fraction was recycled, two points more than in 2023).
The distorting aspects linked to the economic dumping of products, especially from the East, the phenomenon of pseudo-reusable crockery, and the spread of illegal shopping bags that represent more than 25% of those circulating in Italy, ten years after the introduction of sanctions, are to be weighed down. The associations therefore call for greater regulatory support, legislative clarity, stricter controls against unfair commercial practices, and a strategy to defend and enhance the national supply chain, a leader in Europe in the field of circular bioeconomy.
"Today, it costs less to buy a finished compostable bioplastic product made outside the European market than to buy the raw materials needed to produce it in Italy or in any European country," explains Luca Bianconi, president of Assobioplastiche: "Non-EU companies, mainly Asian, often benefit from public subsidies, cheap labour and less stringent regulations than those in Europe. All this represents an unsustainable competitive stress for our companies. Until a few years ago, a significant share of the bioplastic products sold in Europe was produced by European companies. Today, this percentage has progressively decreased. Although European production capacity remains high, it is now under-utilised in several sectors'.
On the pseudo-reusable tableware front - marketed by exploiting a loophole in the Sup (single use plastic) legislation which, while banning single use, did not specify in detail the requirements for defining an item as reusable, thus opening the way to circumvention of the rules - Italy recently notified the EU of a technical proposal for the definition of reusable items on which comments are awaited.
