BPA scare could be healthy for soda ash

03 March 2008 21:57  [Source: ICIS news]

By Ben LeFebvre

HOUSTON (ICIS news)--The scare over the possible adverse health effects from plastic bottles containing bis-phenol A (BPA) may breathe a small bit of relief into US soda ash producers, industry sources said on Monday.

Whether the amount of BPA found in polycarbonate (PC) bottles poses an actual threat to human health – a point that’s still being contended by environmental and plastics trade groups – the effect on the market is real enough.

With retail stores such as Toys “R” Us and Wal Mart saying they’ll phase out products containing the chemical by the end of the year and Owens-Illinois (O-I), one of the world’s largest glass bottle manufacturer, producing its first batch of glass baby bottles in recent memory, US soda ash producers said they could see some life in what had been a stagnant market.

“We saw a small uptick in glass container production in 2007 – maybe half a percent,” said Ted Faster, Solvay’s national sales director for soda ash, echoing a few of his colleagues. “But that reversed a trend. Maybe you can’t get all that excited, but it’s not going down like it was before.”

Kevin Stevens, vice president of O-I’s North America sales and marketing, said it was too soon to calculate how much of an effect the BPA scare could have on any one market segment. But the continued debate does fit into a larger shift of increased glass container demand by consumers interested in environmentally-friendly or premium “organic” products, he said.

“I think it’s going to be a sustainable trend,” he said. “It’s a movement not just about environment but also health, which has moved mainstream.”

Besides the glass baby bottles it said could reach store shelves in three months, the company is also talking to a baby-foods producer looking to relaunch its products in glass containers, Stevens said. These developments send “a significant message” from the glass bottle industry, he said.

“The tide is being stemmed and possibly being reversed,” he said.

The room for optimism is small, however. According to a 2007 report by the Freedonia Group, rigid plastic food container demand in the US will grow 6.3% a year from $3.3bn in 2006 to $4.5bn in 2011.

The report also forecast that demand for glass containers will fall by 7%, from $905m in 2006 to $840m in 2011. The report also indicated, however, that demand from the organic and premium food sectors could be a mitigating factor.

But for soda ash producers, any hint of life is better than a dead market.

“The expectation is that the plastic issues will keep glass strong,” a representative from another soda ash producer said. “But we have not seen anything dramatic – yet.”

For more on soda ash and polycarbonate visit ICIS chemical intelligence

By: Ben Lefebvre
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