Exclusive data from the latest Smithers Pira market report ‘The Future of Industrial Packaging to 2022’ projects worldwide industrial packaging sales will be worth $52.72 billion in 2017. This value is forecast to grow across the next five years at an annual rate of 3.2% to reach $61.84 billion in 2022. The materials used to produce industrial packaging formats – sacks, IBCs, drums, crates/totes – are 14.56 million tonnes in 2017, this is forecast to grow at an annual rate of 2.7% across the same period to reach 16.62 million tonnes.