KUALA LUMPUR, April 9 -- The conflict in the Middle East has triggered a severe disruption in the global supply of plastic resin, creating a packaging crisis in Malaysia that is beginning to affect the availability of everyday consumer goods, industry players have warned.

The conflict has throttled the flow of petrochemicals, leading to a critical shortage of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) resin, a material essential for making plastic bottles and food containers, The Straits Times reported.

This supply chain bottleneck is already being felt on store shelves. In early April, some shoppers reported finding their usual brand of Farm Fresh milk missing, an issue the company has attributed not to a lack of milk, but to a shortage of plast...