Corrugated Packaging: Eco-Friendly Alternative To Conventional Packaging?

With increasing concerns being raised over sustainability and environmental degradation, the demand for corrugated packaging is soaring all over the world, as it is one of the most cost-effective packaging solutions for several industries and produced from natural materials. Moreover, it has the highest recycling rate amongst all other packaging solutions, which is boosting its popularity in countries, where the growing landfill size is becoming a major environmental issue and burden for the government. Besides, the surging international trade activities, rapid industrialization in emerging economies, development of infrastructure facilities, soaring per capita income of people, and expansion of various industries, such as oil and gas, energy, and chemical, are also positively impacting the worldwide demand for corrugated packaging. According to the World Factbook released by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the value of the total industrial production in the U.S. surged to $2.9 trillion in 2017, while it stood at $3.7 trillion in China. Apart from the aforementioned factors, the mushrooming requirement for electrical products, particularly consumer electronics, is also propelling the progress of the global corrugated packaging market, as a result of which, its revenue is predicted to grow from $237.5 billion in 2017 to $294.3 billion by 2023. According to the estimates of the market research company, P&S Intelligence, the market will demonstrate a CAGR of 3.7% from 2018 to 2023 (forecast period) Currently, the sales of corrugated packaging materials are the highest in China in APAC, while Japan is the second largest corrugated packaging market in the region. This is attributed to the increasing exports in Japan, which is already one of the biggest exporters of automotive parts and consumer electronics in the APAC region. WestRock Company, are Nine Dragons Paper (Holdings) Limited, Georgia-Pacific Equity Holdings LLC, International Paper Company, DS Smith PLC, and Oji Holdings Corporation are some of the major corrugated packaging material producing companies around the world.  Hence, the demand for corrugated packaging will rise sharply in the coming years, mainly because of the growing requirement for eco-friendly packaging in several industries.