The consumption of corrugated cardboard boxes It keeps growing. Even before the pandemic, online trade was growing year after year. The Covid19 has greatly accelerated this growth. Successive confinements have away consumers from physical shops And they've pushed them into online trade.
According to estimates by experts in the corrugated cardboard sector, this growth in online trade has increased the consumption of packaging material by around 30%. More than 95% of these packagings are made with corrugated cardboard which facilitates circular economy and sustainability.
The numbers are impressive. Last year the online retail increased worldwide by 27,6 % and by the end of 2020 this increase amounted to $4.28 billion. According to a survey conducted by the Bank of America to 1,000 American consumers aged 18 to 65, 60% of them say that their intention is to buy more online once the pandemic is over. Only 17% say they intend to reduce their online consumption.
Latin America leads online consumption statistics with a growth rate of 36.7%. Western Europe, for its part, is only slightly below the world average, with 26.3%. A growth rate of 14 per cent is expected again in 2021. Even after the pandemic the tendency to buy online will hardly be lessened, as many consumers have taken the taste for its advantages, such as greater selection and convenience of delivery.
According to a survey conducted by the Bank of America of 1,000 American consumers aged 18 to 65, the 60% of them will buy more online even after COVID-19. Only 17% say they will make fewer online purchases as soon as the pandemic happens.
The environment suffers the consequences of this growth in online consumption, as internet shopping generates massive amounts of waste. To give an idea, Germany accumulated 863,000 tonnes of packaging waste in 2018, 96% of which was paper and cardboard. During the same period, the United States consumed 33 million tonnes of corrugated cardboard. Although 95% was recycled, around 9 million tonnes of other paper and cardboard packaging did not return to the cycle. In Europe, approximately 50% of the total 90 million tonnes of paper products manufactured come from recycled fibres, but in China and India this figure is estimated at only 35%. Consumption figures are expected to increase enormously as a result of changes in consumption patterns due to COVID-19.
These huge figures show the importance of using recyclable materials in packaging used for freight transport. The corrugated cardboard has enormous advantages, besides being totally recyclable.
