Silage wrap recycling trending upward

Manager Chris Hartshorne says the scheme, in its eighth year, is attracting more farmers.

“The year we set up the scheme we collected just nine tonnes of waste plastic wrap. Over the past four years the rate of collection has increased steadily. We have now collected 3000 tonnes, and we expect to collect 1000 tonnes in the next year alone.

“Recycling is not a flash-in-the-pan fad…. We have a network of professional contractors to collect silage wrap and a range of other plastic waste from farms, and we are looking at acquiring more balers to handle our increased volumes.”

Hartshorne says Agrecovery quitting farm plastic recycling recently will not reduce the national quantity collected, but should instead raise efficiency.

“There was some brand confusion in the market with two companies offering identical services. We have the capacity to handle all the farmers who were using Agrecovery. In fact, as our scheme grows, it becomes more effective because our collectors can make more frequent pickups.”

Plasback liners are now in all rural stores that formerly sold Agrecovery liners.

Environment Canterbury’s January 1-onwards ban on burning polyethylene silage and bale wrap – backed by a fine of $300 for a first offence and up to $1050 for repeat offences – comes with encouragement to recycle instead.

EC has moved early to ban burning, but other  regional councils have bans pending and others are researching waste volumes on farms, Hartshorne says.

Voluntary, user-pays recycling is more effective than government mandated systems based on levies, he says. “We know voluntary recycling programmes, such as Plasback, are cheaper to run and more effective than systems that apply a levy to the cost of the product.”

www.plasback.co.nz