Geosynthetics Market

The most significant acceleration in the geosynthetics market globally is the result of the enormous capital expenses associated with upgrading transportation infrastructure and public works around the world. As the pace of urban development continues to increase and existing civil engineering capabilities become squeezed due to the expansion of logistics corridors, trillions of dollars have been invested by governments around the globe into rebuilding and building more highways, high-speed rail systems, and airport runways. More traditional methods of constructing these types of projects (with many layers of natural graded aggregates or a lot of soil removed) cannot keep up with the ever-increasing demands of timeline and cost associated with modern-day construction. To address the current limitations of more conventional approaches to civil engineering, modern civil engineering practices have established the use of geotextiles/geogrids/geocells as essential components in constructing the foundation of infrastructure. A geotextile serves as a separation barrier where the soft subgrade soil is permanently isolated from the high-quality base aggregate. Intermixing of materials will not occur under repetitive cyclic loading from traffic and as a result the wood structure will maintain its integrity for decades. The use of a geogrid provides an excellent mechanical interlocking mechanism whereby aggregate particles become laterally confined in the polymer apertures and wheel loads are transferred dynamically over a much larger area.

Geosynthetics are an industry that faces the ongoing financial effects of their extreme structural reliance on the volatility of the global petrochemical market. Since raw materials for geosynthetics, such as geotextiles, geomembranes and geogrids, are primarily produced using synthetic polymers, such as Polyethylene (HDPE, LLDPE), Polypropylene (PP), Polyester (PET), and Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC), disruptions to oil and gas markets immediately affect production costs. The raw material resins generally make up 60% to 75% of the cost of producing a geosynthetic product at the end of the manufacturing process. Thus, manufacturers have very little protection against unexpected increases in crude oil and natural gas prices due to geopolitical tensions or regional production restrictions, or supply chain bottlenecks. This extreme price volatility makes it very difficult to budget for large public civil engineering projects where contracts are often signed many months or even years prior to the delivery of materials. As geosynthetic manufacturers are pressured to either accept the impact of an increase in polymer price during the middle of the contract or cease the supply of materials, this situation usually results in costly project delays and contract disputes.

The shift to circular economies and lower carbon footprints by businesses and regulators has opened up a huge business opportunity in sustainable bioengineered geosynthetics. The geosynthetic industry has traditionally relied on petroleum-based synthetic polymers that take hundreds of years to break down. However, as this industry moves toward a greener approach to civil engineering for temporary and short-lived projects, such as construction erosion control, temporary slope stability, and short-term soil conditioning for agriculture, the use of geosynthetic materials with limited lifespans becomes an engineering disadvantage due to the costs associated with their removal when the projects are complete; therefore, the demand for biodegradable geosynthetics that use natural materials like coir, jute and sisal to produce biodegradable ???synthetic fibres in conjunction with advanced bio-based polymers like polylactic acid (PLA) and polyhydroxy-alkanoates (PHA) represent significant commercial opportunities for the geosynthetic industry moving forward. Modern biodegradable ???synthetics (i.e. bio-geosynthetics) have predictable tensile strength, control over the rate of biodegradation of the material over time, and a defined length of time for which structural loads can be placed on the material (typically 24 to 36 months) while vegetation is establishing its own growth and root systems. Once the vegetation has been established and has taken over as the primary load-bearing material, the bio-???synthetic will biodegrade into natural, non-toxic organic matter with no need for expensive extraction and landfill disposal.

One of the ongoing barriers limiting the global growth of the geosynthetics market is the disparate testing standards, building codes, and approval processes around the world. Unlike conventional construction materials such as structural steel or Portland cement, which have been developed with internationally recognized standards for performance, geosynthetics often face different national testing approaches that delay successful market entry and add to the cost of engineering. For example, a geogrid or geomembrane that meets the performance standards for a highway project in North America (per ASTM International and AASHTO standards) may be rejected for the same application in the EU until additional testing is completed to confirm compliance with CEN or ISO certification requirements. The disparity in national testing standards is even greater in emerging economies across South Asia and Africa, where civil engineering departments at the state level frequently do not have updated standardized codes for using polymer-based materials to support the subgrade. Consequently, independent design engineers must struggle through a lengthy and bureaucratic, project-by-project approval process to demonstrate that geosynthetic materials can provide a safe alternative to traditional aggregate layers; this process can take months and discourages contractors from pursuing innovative solutions. The International Geosynthetics Society (IGS) continually promotes the idea that harmonizing the approval process for geosynthetics will be critical to tapping into valueless and underdeveloped markets for rural and urban infrastructure.