Call to recycle farm plastic waste
Sellers of agricultural plastics such as silage wrap are being urged to take responsibility for their products once they become waste.
Two national schemes were already doing this, but Plasback programme manager Chris Hartshorne estimated a recovery rate of only about 30 per cent for all farm plastic.
Some recycling operations were having to stockpile after overseas outlets, notably China and Malaysia, stopped accepting waste plastic.
This highlighted the need to recycle these plastics within New Zealand, to avoid the harmful disposal of waste such as on-farm burning, burying or storing, said Hartshorne.
Research showed buried agrichemical containers took more than 400 years to decompose, while burning them released harmful toxins.
Because Plasback, which recycles silage wrap, and AgRecovery, which recycles plastic chemical containers and drums, have a New Zealand outlet for their waste plastic they were not affected by the overseas shutdown.
Both schemes sent waste plastic to Astron Sustainability in Auckland, where agrichemical containers were made into an underground cable cover and Plasback’s recycled plastic into Tuffboard plastic plywood, used commonly on farms.
Plasback was owned by AgPack, New Zealand’s largest supplier of crop packaging products, including bale wrap, silage covers and twine. ‘‘Our business is selling plastics to farmers and growers,’’ Hartshorne said.
For 13 years, Plasback had offered a product stewardship scheme that recovered waste farm plastic, which was recycled into other products.
‘‘Not enough sellers are taking responsibility for their products. They are just selling them to farmers and growers and walking away and that’s got to change,’’ said Hartshorne.
He advocated a mandatory product stewardship programme that would provide more money for a nationwide solution for the rural sector and the development of new technology.
‘‘New Zealand is short of recycling capacity to deal with difficult plastics. There are a whole lot of plastics out there that we can’t handle as we don’t have a market for them.
‘‘We need to be able to provide farmers and growers with a solution for every plastic.’’
AgRecovery general manager Simon Andrew said the company last year collected 45 per cent of the agrichemical containers that went into the market.
‘‘We are striving for a collection rate that is far higher than that,’’ Andrew said.
More than 60 manufacturers of agrichemicals pay AgRecovery a levy that covers the collection and recycling of containers and chemicals.
As agrichemical containers were made of rigid, high-density plastic these had a higher recyclable value than other plastic types. ‘‘So finding markets for it is relatively easy.
‘‘Overseas markets are saying that they don’t want baled soft plastics any more. So we need to start developing domestic infrastructure,’’ Andrew said.
Declining international markets for recyclables had forced the closure of Ashburtonbased Wastebusters Trust Canterbury. It shut its farm recycling scheme on August 28 and will stop its other operations at the end of September.
Wastebusters manager Sharon Breakwell said more than 260 farmers had been using its scheme.
As well as recycling bale wrap, silage covers and bale twine, farmers were also doing their household recycling and rubbish collection through the scheme.
‘‘Some farmers have closed their pit and everything is going off-farm, so they have really stepped up,’’ she said.