The world's plastics industry

Plastics industry plays an important role in the world economy. The production of plastics grows fast and almost monotonically; only two major recessions took place in the recent half a century: during the two periods of oil crisis. Next millennium, plastics take more and more share in the consumption of construction materials. In the period to 2010, present trend stay effective and the industry expects an annual growth of 5.3 %. This leads to an average annual growth of plastics consumption of 5.3 % between 1999 and 2010, from 141 million tons to 250 million tons.