NZ Production Statistics

Results of the 2009 (2008 Production Data) Plastics New Zealand Mass Balance Surveyare now available.

Results of the 2008 (2007 Production Data) Plastics New Zealand Mass Balance Survey are now available.

Results of the 2007 (2006 Production Data) Plastics NZ Mass Balance Survey are now available.

Results of the 2006 (2005 Production Data) Plastics NZ Mass Balance Survey are now available

Results of the 2005 (2004 Production Data) Plastics NZ Mass Balance Survey (pdf 284KB).

Did you know the NZ plastics industry...

has over 400 plastic companies
has a turnover of $1.8 billion per year
employs over 8,000 people
has 14 NZ plastics processing companies that employ more than 100 people each
converted 242,930 tonnes of plastic into products in 2003
provides products for the packaging, agricultural, construction and homeware sectors.

New Zealand plastics production in 2003

58% - Packaging

15% - Construction

13% - Agriculture

3% - Houseware

5% - Other

1% - Recycled

1% - Waste

Trends in production show that...

low density polyethylene (LDPE) is the largest area of production in New Zealand, it is commonly used for film and pipe applications
polypropylene (PP) usage is growing rapidly and is predicted to be the next viable material for community or kerbside collection
for each dollar of output, New Zealand manufacturers are using less and less material. More than 50,000 tonnes of material has been saved by source reduction in the eight years from 1994 to 2001 (PNZ, 2002).

There are six main types of plastic imported as raw material. The following graph shows the total tonnage of NZ raw materials annual imports.

The New Zealand plastics industry...

does not manufacture plastic raw materials
imports all its plastic materials, in granular form as raw materials, mainly from Northern America and Asia
predicts from current trends that over 300,000 tonnes of raw plastic material will be imported in 2030.