Iran war promises green edge for Asia as plastic packaging runs short

InternationalMust ReadIran war promises green edge for Asia as plastic packaging runs shortBy Reuters -Apr 15, 2026SEOUL: An ‘eco-friendly’ range of paper tubes and pouches touted by Yonwoo, a South Korean maker ​of packaging for cosmetics, has reaped unexpected benefit from the Iran war, which has disrupted supplies of the plastic needed to turn out single-use ‌wrapping. While the Iran conflict has sent plastic prices soaring to roughly four-year highs by choking off flows of the required raw materials, oil and petrochemicals, the company says it has fuelled inquiries threefold for paper-based options. “Interest initially came from companies focused on sustainability … but if the plastics issue gets prolonged we expect demand to further increase,” said Kim Min-sang, a senior manager at parent Kolmar Korea. The supplier to ​major firms, such as France’s L’Oreal, has fielded inquiries mainly for paper tubes encasing items such as sunscreen and lotions that use just 20% of the ​plastic employed by conventional packaging, Kim told Reuters. Across Asia, home to some of the world’s biggest plastic users and polluters, changes that ⁠environmental groups have sought for decades are quickly being adopted, even if they may prove a short-term flip. MORE UNCERTAINTY AHEAD Asia is not only heavily reliant on feedstock imported from ​the Middle East, but it is hooked on plastic, with China, Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia together using almost a third of the world’s total by 2022, OECD ​data showed, up 900% since 1990. The region also accounts for more than a third of all plastic waste leaking into the environment, thanks to poor waste collection methods in low-income Southeast Asian nations. Japan ranks behind only the United States in terms of plastic production and consumption per head, according to a 2025 study by researchers from Beijing’s Tsinghua University published in the science journal Nature. Wholesalers there have been ​warning about possible shortages of plas...