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Rural plastics waste is a persistent and growing problem for the farmers and growers of New Zealand. The Agrecovery programme was established to provide a long term recycling solution for on-farm waste issues, with the ability to dispose of the millions of plastic agrichemical containers currently used in New Zealand each year. Up until Agrecovery started the common practice was to burn or bury these containers. Neither of these solutions is considered environmentally friendly so we needed a new disposal option. Agrecovery gives every farmer and grower the ability to now dispose of these containers, and now also their silage wrap in a more responsible way. See below for further information on the programme.
Why Do We Need Agrecovery?
In New Zealand we currently dispose of an estimated 10 million 20-litre equivalent plastic agrichemical containers every year. Farmers and growers, national and international government, customers and buyers are all increasingly looking for more sustainable disposal solutions than burning, burying or dumping.
Agrecovery is needed because;
- Farmers and growers are looking for practical solutions to manage farm wastes that are environmentally acceptable
- International buyers are demanding more sustainable business practices with compliance programmes such as EUREPGAP
- We need to ensure that New Zealand is working towards an international best practice and taking responsibility for its "on farm" packaging waste
- New Zealand's environmental performance is being scrutinised
How did it start and who supports Agrecovery?
The programme was established in December 2005 with the formation of the Agrecovery Foundation. This followed years of reporting on the scale of the problem within New Zealand and a strong desire from various organisations and individuals to do something about it.
The foundation "owns" and provides the governance structure through a set of elected trustees who are;
- Federated Farmers
- Horticulture New Zealand
- Agcarm (New Zealand Association for Animal Health and Crop Protection)
- Fonterra Cooperative
- Environment Waikato (for Local Government)
Agrecovery is supported by the entire rural industry including agrichemical companies, local government, rural retailers, industry organisations and of course New Zealand farmers and growers.
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Agrecovery is a Product Stewardship programme
Agrecovery is a model voluntary product stewardship scheme. It was established in a regulatory environment which does not create incentive for brand owners (manufacturers and distributors) to undertake this sort of commitment. The Agrecovery committed companies that have voluntarily come into the programme have agreed to place a levy on the sale price of their products distributed into the New Zealand market.
If anything, participating in Agrecovery can create a commercial disadvantage for those companies that commit to being part of the programme. Their products are potentially more expensive (with a levy) than products of competing companies that aren't part of Agrecovery. The companies that don't commit to the programme (but probably should) do not have their containers collected in the programme. We only collect containers that are the products and brands of those that support Agrecovery.
The levy is collected by the brand owners and passed to the foundation which pays for all the costs associated with running the programme.
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It started with some financial support
Before the brand owners agreed to implement the levy and fund the programme there was a lot of financial support for the establishment of Agrecovery. These organisations assisted with the important task of getting the programme to the start line. Click here to see a list of financial contributers to Agrecovery. On an ongoing basis the programme is completely self sufficient through the levy fund.
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Agrecovery Today
The Agrecovery container programme has been operating since April 1st 2007. It was officially launched by the Minister for the Environment at a formal gathering at the Richmond collection site in Nelson. A copy of the speech can be viewed by clicking on the image below.
Trustees, Programme Management and the Right Hon. David Benson-Pope, Minister for the Environment at the official programme launch from left to right: Peter Ensor (Hort NZ and Programme Administrator), Richard Kempthorne (Chairman Agrecovery Foundation), Lewis Metcalfe (Trustee Agrecovery Foundation), David Benson-Pope (Minister for the Environment), Chris Ballantyne (Ministry for the Environment) and Bruce Emerson (Director 3R Group Ltd, programme managers of Agrecovery)
During the first 6 months of operations we focussed on getting the collection sites in place, training the inspectors and building the unique mobile processing equipment  .
The participation of farmers and growers is building all the time and the interest and awareness of the programme has been very strong.
The programme is accesable to a large number of New Zealand farmers and growers with the majority of the proposed 52 sites planned within the first year in place. The balance of collection sites is expected to be up and running by the end of the first quarter 2008.
Media interest in the programme has been significant. Click here for some examples of the publicity the programme has generated since inception.
In March 2009 a new service was added to the programme, Agrecovery Wrap. Since the programme first started farmers have been asking us "What about silage wrap?"
We have been aware of the need to solve this persistant waste issue and are pleased to be able to offer a cost effective, simple solution that is now available nationwide. Agrecovery wrap bags are available from purchase from selected rural retailers and online
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Agrecovery Member Companies
Agrecovery started in April 2007 with 16 brand owners and has seen steady growth since its early days. We now currently have 39 committed brand owners and are actively negotiating to bring more brands into the programme.
Where to from Here?
Agrecovery has already identified other areas of on farm waste to target in the future.
We are also working on a solution for your bigger containers, i.e. 60L to 200L. Some of the options we are considering is a reconditioning and reuse service for larger drums rather than recycling these containers as they are still a valuable resource.
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Read about the managment of Agrecovery
Read about the Agrecovery Foundation (AF)
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