STATISTICS FOR INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL

RIGID PLASTIC PACKAGING

FOR 1998

The market for industrial rigid plastic packaging in 1998

27,500,000 plastic packages with a capacity from 10 to 1200 litres were sold on the French market in 1998, corresponding to 38,900 tonnes of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) processed in order to make industrial packages.

For polypropylene (PP), around 90,000,000 buckets with capacities from 2 to 32 litres were on the market in 1998, equivalent to processing around 30,000 tonnes of raw material.

Of these 30,000 tonnes of processed material, we currently reckon that 50% of production is oriented to the industrial sector: Civil Engineering, SME/SMI, craft companies. The remaining 50% are for the domestic sector (supermarkets) and the so-called "non-household" consumer sector which includes, in particular, community canteens (school canteens, company restaurants, hospital canteens,…).

We consider that for both PP and HDPE the volume of imports is roughly equal to the volume of exports.

The tonnages used in the growth statistics for industrial and commercial rigid plastic packaging are therefore as follows:

CONSUMPTION

Collection of packaging

After having questioned the plastic producers (SPMP) and manufacturers of packaging (CSEMP) in order to assess the market for industrial rigid plastic packaging, we next questioned the companies specialising in the collection and treatment of packaging in order to estimate the tonnage of packaging collected and subjected to processing (renovation for re-use, material recycling, energy recycling or destruction in an approved centre).

Material	Tonnage put onto the market	Tonnage collected
HDPE	38,900	11,000
PP	15,000	2,218
TOTAL	53,900	13,218

For HDPE, around 28% of the tonnage released onto the market was collected and for PP around 14.8% was collected.

Re-use

Out of 13,218 tonnes of packaging collected, 5953 tonnes are destined for the re-use sector.

Packaging collected	13,218 tonnes
Packaging re-used	5,953 tonnes

45% of packaging collected is therefore destined for re-use.

Material recycling

The overall tonnage of packaging subject to material recycling is 2950 tonnes, that is 22% of the tonnage collected (2782 tonnes for HDPE and 168 tonnes for PP).

Tonnage to be recycled (i.e. excluding that re-used)	47,947 tonnes
Material recycled	2,950 tonnes

6.15% of the tonnage of packaging (HDPE + PP) available for recovery has been recycled.

Energy recovery

Tonnage to be recycled (i.e. excluding that re-used)	47 947 tonnes
Energy recovery	4 400 tonnes

9,17% of the tonnage of packaging (HDPE + PP) available for recovery has been treated by energy recovery.

Summary

	HDPE	PP	TOTAL
Consumption figures	38,900 T	15,000 T	53,900 T
Tonnage re-used	5953 T 15.3%		5953 T
Tonnage left for recovery	32,947 T	15,000 T	47,947 T
Material recycled	2782 T 8.44%	168 T 1.12%	2950 T 6.15%
Energy recovery	2350 T 7%	2050 T 13.66%	4400 T 9.17%
Total recycled	5132 T 15.57%	2218 T 14.78%	7350 T 15.32%