One stop shop for farmers to dispose of chemicals

AgRecovery is eagerly awaiting the results of a trial event giving farmers in Waipa¯ the chance to hand over rural waste traditionally stockpiled in the back of their sheds.

The AgRecovery rural recycling programme has held its first One Stop Shop pop-up in Cambridge where empty chemical containers, waste oil, seed, feed and fertiliser bags were handed over for recycling or disposal.

Among those to visit the event was Te Awamutu farmer Chris Numan. ‘‘It’s a good idea because normally there’s not a lot of options out there as far as recycling goes and this has made it quite easy for us to drop off a bunch of different materials to have a bit of a clear out.’’

Numan delivered about fifty 20-litre drums, a couple of 200-litre drums, 160 litres of waste oil and about 100kg of polyprop plastic bags. ‘‘It’s the kind of stuff that’s been sitting in the shed for a while and you don’t really feel comfortable burying it in on the farm. So it gets hoarded up waiting for an opportunity like this where you can dispose of it in an environmentally friendly way.’’

People had to book to use the pop-up event online. Each person was allocated a time slot and given the location at the time of booking, to avoid mass groups turning up. Waipa¯ District Council, which hosted the event, said every slot was snapped up ahead of the time.

AgRecovery would calculate the results of the event, in terms of volume of waste dropped off for example, and those figures would be reported back to the council.

Numan said the process was quite simple. First the containers were dropped off into a conveyor belt which loaded into a mobile shredder. The waste oil was taken and weighed at the next stage. Bags were taken at the final stage.

Numan said staff operating the shredder explained how the containers were processed and made into covers to protect underground cables.

‘‘I think if this could be made into an annual event, or bi-annual, you would probably get more people coming forward with more material to be recycled, because they’d know there was somewhere to get rid of it all.’’

Ag Recovery planned to trial 13 OneStop Shop ‘‘pop-up’’ events in 2020-21 which were used to break down the barriers preventing farmers and growers from recycling. It also had a network of 94 collection sites around the country and was looking to add six more before June.