Agrecovery and Plasback have signed a memorandum of understanding and will work together to improve the services they provide farmers and growers.
It will see them join forces to provide the most efficient and cost-effective means to collect and recycle used farm plastic.
“Our focus is on finding the best ways to meet the needs of primary producers,” Agrecovery chief executive Tony Wilson says.
“Agrecovery and Plasback have different and complementary strengths and areas of expertise. By working together we will target our future investments to take farm plastic recycling to the next level.”
Both companies have been collecting and facilitating the recycling of farm plastic in New Zealand for more than 15 years.
Both are accredited voluntary product stewardship schemes under the Waste Minimisation Act.
“Plasback has developed an on-farm collection service for silage wrap and pit covers, while Agrecovery has established a nation-wide drop-off service to recycle agrichemical containers and large drums,” Plasback commercial manager Neal Shaw says.
“Now our aim is to develop a service that can collect all agricultural and horticultural plastics for recycling.
“Tony and I both get calls every day from farmers and growers who want to do the right thing with their used plastic. Going forward, we will work together to take that problem off their hands.”
The two organisations have made the decision to co-operate at a time when the Government has announced its intention to establish a mandatory, industry-wide product stewardship scheme for farm plastics.
The anticipated go-live date for the regulated scheme is July 2024.
The scheme will include an up-front stewardship fee on designated farm plastic products, including packaging.
A wider scheme for consumer goods packaging is also being designed.
Agrecovery and Plasback are working with the Ministry to come up with a scheme that costs industry as little as possible but is still comprehensive enough to collect, process and ship all used farm plastic to domestic and overseas recyclers.
Shaw and Wilson say farmers and growers are facing significant price increases on agrichemicals and crop packaging products.
By working together they can keep any additional costs in recycling plastic from the primary sector to a minimum.
