section_path: Plastic industry/Production
section_name: Production
paragraph_text: Production
  
  Between 1950 and 2017, 9.2 billion tonnes of plastic are estimated to have been made, with more than half this having been produced since 2004. Since the birth of the plastic industry in the 1950s, global production has increased enormously, reaching 400 million tonnes a year in 2021; this is up from 381 million metric tonnes in 2015 (excluding additives). From the 1950s, rapid growth occurred in the use of plastics for packaging, in building and construction, and in other sectors. If global trends on plastic demand continue, it is estimated that by 2050 annual global plastic production will exceed 1.1 billion tonnes annually.
  
  Plastics are produced in chemical plants by the polymerization of their starting materials (monomers); which are almost always petrochemical in nature. Such facilities are normally large and are visually similar to oil refineries, with sprawling pipework running throughout. The large size of these plants allows them to exploit economies of scale. Despite this, plastic production is not particularly monopolized, with about 100 companies accounting for 90% of global production. This includes a mixture of private and state-owned enterprises. Roughly half of all production takes place in East Asia, with China being the largest single producer. Major international producers include:
  
  Historically, Europe and North America have dominated global plastics production. However, since 2010 Asia has emerged as a significant producer, with China accounting for 31% of total plastic resin production in 2020. Regional differences in the volume of plastics production are driven by user demand, the price of fossil fuel feedstocks, and investments made in the petrochemical industry. For example, since 2010 over US$200 billion has been invested in the United States in new plastic and chemical plants, stimulated by the low cost of raw materials. In the European Union (EU), too, heavy investments have been made in the plastics industry, which employs over 1.6 million people with a turnover of more than 360 billion euros per year. In China in 2016 there were over 15,000 plastic manufacturing companies, generating more than US$366 billion in revenue.
  
  In 2017, the global plastics market was dominated by thermoplastics – polymers that can be melted and recast. Thermoplastics include polyethylene (PE), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polypropylene (PP), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polystyrene (PS) and synthetic fibers, which together represent 86% of all plastics.