# 4.6.2 Material costs in manufacturing

For high added-value products like boats and cars, material costs form a relatively small proportion of total costs. For directly manufactured products, however, which are sold without much assembly or finishing, material costs do form a relatively large proportion of the total production cost. This applies particularly to polymeric containers for foods and drinks but not, for example, to containers for more sophisticated products like electronic or electrical goods. What is much more important in high added-value products is that the polymer container protect the contents from the environment for which that product is destined. Equally relevant is the way that the container is produced, because different routes of production have significantly different costings.

OpenLearn - Introduction to polymers
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