Spotlight on Spunlace

With the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic still raging on around the world, demand for wipes—especially disinfecting and hand sanitizing wipes—remains high, which has sparked high demand for the materials that make them such as spunlace nonwovens. Spunlace or hydroentangled nonwovens in wipes consumed a projected total of 877,700 tons of material worldwide in 2020. This is up from 777,700 tons in 2019, according to the latest data from the Smithers’ market report – The Future of Global Nonwoven Wipes to 2025. Total value (at constant prices) rose from $11.71 billion in 2019, to $13.08 billion in 2020. According to Smithers, the nature of the Covid-19 pandemic means that even if nonwovens wipes had previously been considered a discretionary purchase in household budgets, moving forward they will be considered essential. Smithers consequently forecasts future growth of 8.8% year-on-year (by volume). This will drive global consumption to 1.28 billion tonnes in