Discover more about Plastics the Fast Facts 2025
Do you have any questions?
Find below the answers to the most common questions.
Why is the data in Plastics the Fast Facts only preliminary?
Data contained in the Plastics the Fast Facts report may change slightly in function of more recent available data (incl. official data) after its publication.
Why is Plastics Europe showing pre-consumer recycled plastics production, while it did not in previous Plastics the Fast Facts reports?
Plastics Europe decided to show the pre-consumer recycled plastics separately – until now embedded in the fossil-based plastics production - to give the best comprehensive and detailed overview of the European plastics production. Pre-consumer recycled plastics, as per the Plastics Europe glossary, is indeed part of the circular plastics category. However, Plastics Europe only considers post-consumer recycled plastics for recycling rates in its Facts and Figures publications.
Why did you change the format of the Plastics – the Facts and remove the demand and waste data from it?
In 2023, Plastics – the Facts was changed into an infographic and renamed: “Plastics – the fast Facts”. This new format continues to present data on global and European plastics production, as well as key economic figures.
The removal of demand and waste data was motivated by data availability reasons and a need to avoid redundant information across different publications. More detailed data on conversion and waste management are presented in the Circular Economy for Plastics reports.
Note: As of 2025, the title of the report is written as “Plastics the Fast Facts”.
Why were the scope and definitions changed in Plastics – the Facts for the 2021 data onwards?
Plastics Europe has reviewed the scope and some definitions used in its datasets to generate data that can help to address today’s sustainability challenges, and to ensure data comparability with other Plastics Europe reports and studies. The extension of the scope of the data to bio-based and bio-attributed, recycled (mechanically and chemically) and carbon-captured plastics was needed to show the switch to circular feedstock by the World and European plastics industry. Differences in scope between the European plastics production and demand data in different publications were confusing readers, hence the decision to harmonise datasets. In addition, since Plastics Europe represents the European plastics manufacturers, we decided to remove polymers that are not used in the manufacturing of plastics parts and products from the data scope.
Why are the historical data (World and EU) for plastics production not the same as in the previous publications?
Plastics Europe is adapting its datasets on a continuous basis to offer the best available data that can help to address today’s sustainability challenges. This means that historical data sometimes needs to be adapted retrospectively, in function of new scope and definitions, as well as new data availability.
Why are the historical data (World and EU) for bio-based and bio-attributed production significantly different compared to Plastics - the Facts 2021?
Plastics Europe is adapting its datasets on a continuous basis, to offer the best available data that can help to address today’s sustainability challenges. This means that historical data sometimes needs to be adapted retrospectively, in function of new scope and definitions, as well as new data availability.
Available bio-based structural polymers estimations were used for Plastics - the Facts 2021. For the later editions, Plastics Europe decided to develop data with the nova-Institute on the bio-based and bio-attributed plastics production that would be aligned with the scope of its publications, to allow a better readability and comparability, hence the change in the historical bio-based plastics production data.