Last Updated: August 9, 2026

75+ Packaging Manufacturing Statistics for 2026

Every physical product needs a way to survive filling, storage, freight, retail, and final delivery. That makes packaging manufacturing a useful signal for the wider economy. Corrugated boxes track goods movement. Bottles and cans track consumer demand. Film, pallets, cartons, and protective packaging reveal how supply chains are changing.

This report brings U.S. packaging industry statistics into one cited resource. It covers paper, plastic, glass, steel, aluminum, and wood packaging, plus the industrial codes researchers need to find employment, shipment, establishment, production, and trade data. EPA's latest material-specific tables use 2018 as their reference year. They remain the agency's most recent complete national material-flow estimates, so the year is stated wherever those figures appear.

1. U.S. Packaging Industry Overview

Packaging isn't one NAICS industry. It is a demand system spread across paper manufacturing, plastics converting, glass products, fabricated metal products, lumber products, printing, adhesives, inks, and packaging machinery. A market estimate that includes all of those activities will be larger than an estimate limited to empty containers. Researchers should define the boundary before comparing numbers.

The most consistent national material benchmark comes from the EPA containers and packaging dataset. Americans generated 82.2 million tons of containers and packaging in 2018. That was 28.1% of municipal solid waste generation. About 44.3 million tons were recycled, producing a 53.9% recycling rate. Another 7.4 million tons were combusted with energy recovery and 30.5 million tons went to landfill.

Those totals are material-flow estimates, not factory shipment values. They still matter to packaging manufacturers because recycled feedstock availability, extended producer responsibility rules, customer scorecards, lightweighting, and packaging design decisions all begin with the physical flow of material. The gap between a 96.5% corrugated recycling rate and a 13.1% plastic container and packaging recycling rate also explains why sustainability claims must identify the material and format.

2. Packaging Generation and Recycling by Material

Source years and definitions: EPA Facts and Figures, 2018 material estimates.

Paper dominates packaging tonnage and recovered tonnage. Its 41.9 million tons represented just over half of the packaging total. Plastic ranked second among the listed container and packaging materials at 14.5 million tons, while wood packaging reached 11.5 million tons. Glass followed at 9.8 million tons. Steel and aluminum packaging were much smaller by weight, but both have established scrap markets.

The recycling comparison needs care. EPA includes corrugated boxes in paper packaging and durable pallets in wood packaging. Plastic combines bottles, containers, wraps, bags, sacks, and other resin formats. Collection systems and end markets differ across those formats. A single plastics average can hide bottle recycling rates near 29% and rates below 10% for several flexible or mixed formats.

3. Paper, Paperboard, and Corrugated Packaging Statistics

Corrugated is the workhorse of industrial and ecommerce shipping. It is light relative to its stacking strength, printable, easy to die cut, and supported by a mature recovery system. EPA estimated 33.3 million tons of corrugated boxes were generated in 2018 and 32.1 million tons were recycled. That 96.5% rate was the highest rate among the major packaging formats in the agency table.

A high recovery rate does not mean every box becomes another box. Fiber quality declines with repeated processing, contaminants reduce yield, and mills blend recovered fiber with virgin furnish to meet performance requirements. Box design also changes material demand. Right-sizing can reduce basis weight and void fill, while direct-to-consumer shipping can increase the number of individual parcels.

For current mill operating rates, production, inventories, and recovered paper statistics, use the American Forest & Paper Association statistics hub. For employment, hours, earnings, producer prices, and workplace injuries, the BLS NAICS 322 profile is the better starting point. Keeping physical recovery data separate from factory economics prevents false comparisons.

4. Plastic Packaging Statistics

Plastic packaging covers rigid bottles, jars, tubs, closures, thermoformed trays, multilayer barrier structures, shrink film, stretch film, bags, pouches, and industrial bulk packaging. These products use different resins and manufacturing processes. Blow molding, injection molding, cast film, blown film, extrusion coating, lamination, and thermoforming should not be treated as one production market.

The 13.1% aggregate recycling rate shows why resin identification alone does not guarantee recovery. Package shape, color, label stock, adhesive, closure, food residue, multilayer construction, local acceptance, sortation technology, bale specifications, and recycled resin economics all affect whether material completes the loop. PET and natural HDPE bottles approached 29% in the EPA table, while bags, sacks, wraps, and other plastic packaging were much lower.

Manufacturers evaluating a packaging line should consider more than resin cost per pound. Line speed, seal integrity, shelf life, product loss, freight cube, damage, rework, cleaning time, and retailer requirements can outweigh a small material saving. The BLS NAICS 326 industry page provides a current view of the wider plastics and rubber products workforce and producer price series. It includes far more than packaging, so use six-digit NAICS data for precise market sizing.

5. Glass, Aluminum, and Steel Packaging Statistics

Glass, aluminum, and steel compete with paper and plastic in food, beverage, personal care, pharmaceutical, chemical, and industrial applications. Their economics are different. Glass adds weight but provides a strong barrier and inert product contact. Aluminum is light and valuable in the scrap stream. Steel provides strength, heat tolerance, magnetic separation, and established can-making infrastructure.

EPA estimated a 31.3% glass container recycling rate, a 35.1% aluminum packaging rate, and a 73.8% steel packaging rate. Aluminum beverage cans performed better than aluminum packaging overall, at 50.4%. The difference is a reminder to specify the package. Foil, closures, trays, and cans do not share one collection path.

Industry sources offer newer operational context. The Aluminum Association recycling center explains closed-loop metal recovery and current industry research. The Glass Packaging Institute covers cullet, bottle manufacturing, and glass recovery. Association figures may use different boundaries than EPA, so cite the publishing organization, reference year, and definition together.

6. Packaging Manufacturing NAICS Codes and Research Guide

There is no single packaging manufacturing code. Market researchers get better results by building a code set around the package and process. The table below identifies eight useful six-digit industries. Verify codes against the current Census NAICS search before purchasing a list or comparing time series because classifications can change between NAICS editions.

Where to find employment and wage data

Use BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages for establishments, employment, and average weekly wages by geography. Use Current Employment Statistics for monthly trends when a series is published. Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics is better for production occupations, maintenance technicians, engineers, sales representatives, and managers. The paper manufacturing profile and plastics and rubber products profile connect those series.

Where to find shipments and plant counts

The Annual Survey of Manufactures reports employment, payroll, value added, capital expenditures, materials, and shipments. County Business Patterns is useful for establishment counts and employment size classes. Economic Census tables add product-level detail at five-year intervals. These programs have different disclosure rules and release schedules, so figures pulled on different dates may not line up perfectly.

Where to find production and trade data

The Federal Reserve G.17 release tracks industrial production and capacity utilization for selected manufacturing industries. For imports and exports, query HTS product codes through USITC DataWeb. NAICS describes producers, while HTS codes describe traded products. A credible trade analysis documents the exact HTS codes instead of labeling a broad customs total as the entire packaging market.

7. What the Data Says About Packaging Manufacturing

Packaging industry statistics published in 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025 often focus on the global packaging industry, global plastic demand, or market share forecasts. This page takes a narrower approach to the U.S. packaging sector. It separates plastic containers from other plastic products and distinguishes total packaging material flows from sales forecasts. That boundary is useful when evaluating sustainable packaging, smart packaging, and the machinery that packaging manufacturers use.

Commercial forecasts also divide the global plastic packaging market into rigid plastic and the flexible packaging market, then segment demand by food and beverage, healthcare, personal care, and industrial uses. Asia-Pacific growth can shape resin, equipment, and finished-package trade even when a study focuses on U.S. plants. Useful packaging solutions start with the application. Paper and paperboard, paperboard packaging, plastic containers and packaging, cans, and glass each support different packaging designs and filling systems.

Forecast readers should check whether CAGR refers to dollars or packaging volume. Inflation can raise market data without a matching rise in demand for packaging. The packaging used for e-commerce also differs from retail shelf formats, while industrial packaging includes drums, bulk bins, pallets, and heavy-duty sacks. Claims that containers and packaging products are recyclable should be supported by collection and end-market access. A package designed for recycled plastic is not automatically recovered in every community.

Material substitution is application-specific

A high recycling rate can make a material attractive, but package selection still starts with product protection. Barrier requirements, sterilization, hot fill, cold chain, hazardous materials rules, drop performance, opening experience, line compatibility, and delivered cost decide whether substitution works. A damaged product usually carries more economic and environmental cost than the package saved.

Recycled content changes the supplier conversation

Brand owners increasingly ask converters about recycled content, chain of custody, food-contact status, carbon reporting, design for recycling, and source reduction. Suppliers selling inspection, extrusion, forming, printing, conveying, coding, testing, or automation equipment can win attention by connecting the machine specification to one of those measurable outcomes.

Lightweighting has operational limits

Reducing grams per package lowers material use and freight weight, but thin walls can create paneling, seal failures, top-load problems, poor machinability, or higher damage. The best projects validate the complete system, including filling equipment, secondary packaging, pallet pattern, distribution vibration, warehouse stacking, and consumer use.

Automation demand follows SKU complexity

More package sizes, promotional runs, private-label products, and ecommerce formats increase changeovers. Flexible automation, recipe control, machine vision, robotic case packing, palletizing, traceability, and quick-change tooling help plants handle that mix. Buyers still need a payback case based on labor, throughput, scrap, downtime, and quality, not a generic smart factory pitch.

Packaging data needs a defined boundary

Industry market reports often disagree because they count different things. One report may count the converter's sale of an empty package. Another may include labels, closures, contract packing, machinery, and the value of packaging performed inside food or beverage plants. Currency conversion, inflation, geography, and forecast assumptions add more variation. Before citing a packaging market size, document whether the number covers primary, secondary, and tertiary packaging, and whether it measures factory shipments, revenue, consumption, or material volume.

For plant-level prospecting, broad market value is usually less useful than establishment counts, employment, production capacity, and end-market exposure. A supplier of corrugator parts needs box plants, not every company that buys a box. A vision inspection vendor may need high-speed beverage can lines. A flexible packaging printer may segment prospects by food, pet care, medical, or industrial applications. The Census ASM, BLS industry data, and USITC DataWeb support those narrower questions with definitions that can be reproduced.

8. Packaging Statistics FAQ

How much packaging waste does the United States generate?

EPA estimated 82.2 million tons of containers and packaging in 2018, equal to 28.1% of municipal solid waste generation. The agency estimated 44.3 million tons were recycled, 7.4 million tons were combusted with energy recovery, and 30.5 million tons were landfilled. See the original EPA table.

Which packaging material has the highest recycling rate?

Corrugated boxes had the highest major-format rate in EPA's 2018 packaging table at 96.5%. Steel packaging followed at 73.8%. Rates are weight-based national estimates and do not measure recycled content in a new package. Review EPA's definitions.

What is the NAICS code for packaging manufacturing?

Packaging spans several codes. Examples include 322211 for corrugated and solid fiber boxes, 326111 for plastic bags and pouches, 326160 for plastic bottles, 327213 for glass containers, and 332431 for metal cans. Confirm the product and current code in the Census NAICS system.

Why does the latest EPA packaging table use 2018 data?

National material-flow estimates require data from industry groups, government programs, and recovery systems. EPA currently presents 2018 as its latest complete material-specific national dataset on these pages. More recent association or state figures may exist, but their boundaries can differ from the national EPA series.

Cite This Resource

Sources

Every numerical claim on this page links to its original source. These are the primary datasets and reference pages used:

1. EPA, Containers and Packaging: Product-Specific Data
2. EPA, Paper and Paperboard: Material-Specific Data
3. EPA, Plastics: Material-Specific Data
4. EPA, Glass: Material-Specific Data
5. EPA, Aluminum: Material-Specific Data
6. EPA, National Overview: Facts and Figures
7. BLS, Paper Manufacturing, NAICS 322
8. BLS, Plastics and Rubber Products Manufacturing, NAICS 326
9. Census Bureau, North American Industry Classification System
10. Census Bureau, Annual Survey of Manufactures
11. Federal Reserve, Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization
12. USITC DataWeb, U.S. trade data
13. American Forest & Paper Association, Industry Statistics
14. The Aluminum Association, Recycling
15. Glass Packaging Institute, Sustainability and Recycling