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Dairy Woman of the Year, primary school teacher and passionate environmentalist Trish Rankin from Taranaki wants all farmers to get educated on the six Rs of waste decision-making: Refuse, Reduce, Reuse/Repair, Recycle, Rehome and Rot (compost). Rankin took part in the Kellogg Leadership Programme last year. With her research project focussing on minimising waste on farms, she looked at how a circular economy model could be developed for a New Zealand dairy farm. Essentially, this involves regenerating natural systems, designing out waste and pollution, and reusing products and materials. Rankin’s reflection on how she could be doing better with her farm waste was the main driver for the project. Trish and her husband Glen are in their second season as ...

Simon Cook, a third generation kiwifruit grower from the kiwifruit capital of the world and owner of a spray contracting business, summarises how environmental stewardship envelops his business ethos with the Maori proverb, Whatungarongaro te tangata toitū te whenua – translated to ‘As man disappears from sight, the land remains’. “I’m on a property that’s been here for three generations and I’m hoping to pass it on to my kids. I don’t want to leave something behind that they’re going to have to clean up in the future. Part of that is dealing with chemicals and minimising their impact,” says Cook. Cook and his family grow green and gold kiwifruit varieties in Te Puke and have recently branched out to ...

An Agrecovery partner since its inception, the agriculture spraying company believes that sustainability should be embedded into every farming operation. It offers a collection site for agrichemical, dairy hygiene and animal health containers. Integral to their service is environmental stewardship – not only in educating the farmers that use their site, but also in conducting their contracting service throughout the region. Molloy Agriculture offers a ground application service for a wide range of arable, vegetable and pastoral crops including wheat, barley, ryegrass, clover and peas. Their service means no waste is left on the farm. “When we spray for clients, we rinse the containers,” says Mangin. ”If we supply the agrichemicals, we bring the containers back for recycling, so it’s ...

Former Hurunui Council Mayor, Winton Dalley is a fantastic champion of agricultural recycling programmes and has been encouraging his community to support them for many years. The council and Dalley’s environmental priorities extend beyond agrichemical containers and drums, and chemical recovery. They include soft plastics, twine, netting and pipes, and that’s just in the agricultural arena. “Stewardship systems are the only way of dealing with waste,” Dalley says. “We need to be turning the clock back to reusing and recycling.” He says that buying new products made from containers means “you don’t need to pull more oil out of the ground to make them”. “Stewardship programmes mean that the cost of responsible recovery is factored in with the purchase of ...

Farmers are coming under far more scrutiny these days by regulators and the public says Peter Thomson of Agrispray and Equipment in Mosgiel. Agrispray run a specialist agrichemical and spray machinery retail business and host the local Agrecovery collection site. Sales and Technical Manager, Peter, believes responsible disposal of spray containers is paramount for their business: “It’s just good stewardship”. As suppliers to a wide range of industries, Agrispray and Equipment Limited deal with most agrichemical users. “Our industry tries to follow the principles of responsible and effective use of agrichemicals. I think recycling fits into that quite well as does hosting the recycling site,” says Peter. He has been in the industry since 1974 and recalls the transition from ...

Wanganui Farm Supplies have been an Agrecovery container drop-off point since 2010. Manager, Scott Morpeth recalls that when they were approached by Agrecovery, they thought it was a such a good idea they didn’t hesitate to get involved. Established in 1987, Wanganui Farm Supplies is a well-known rural retail outlet. They service the equestrian market, plus sheep, beef and dairy farmers and the horticultural industry. “Farmers can now recycle their plastic containers whenever we’re open,” says Scott. “Six days a week is a lot more convenient than 3 hours once a month like the old days.” The Agrecovery programme means farmers no longer need to have containers lying around on their farms, nor do they have to burn them, or ...

Avocado grower, Ray Woolley from Kaitaia, is delighted to have won the Suzuki DR200 Trojan farmbike Agrecovery offered as an incentive to draw new participants to the recycling programme. On hearing he’d won the ‘Kick start your winter clean up’ promotion, Ray exclaimed “I’m 76 years old and it’s the first time I’ve won anything of value. It’s fantastic news!” Ray first read about Agrecovery when the avocado industry magazine “Avoscene” ran a story on the autumn motorbike promotion. “My wife Margaret and I have always had green principles, recycling through the council when they first introduced recycling depots in the early 80’s. “We bought the avocado orchard in Houhora as a retirement block and quickly realised the need to ...

Waikato onion producers, Chapman Onion Exports, have been rewarded for their recycling efforts in the recent Agrecovery container promotion, winning one of the ten $500 rural supplier vouchers. The company, who have been in business since 1977, have recycled over 6,000 containers in 6 years with Agrecovery through the Matamata and Pukekohe collection sites. According to Brenhan Chapman, Area Manager Matamata, the programme is a very convenient way to deal with their empty chemical containers: “We like to be proactive with compliance and were early adopters of the service. We knew it was likely to become a future requirement of customers that we were responsible and followed best practice. “Like anything, the process seemed a bit difficult initially but its ...

Robert Crawford, a sheep and beef farmer from Gore, was one of ten recyclers to win during the recent Agrecovery container promotion. He started recycling around 2011 and says that taking the empty agrichemical and drench containers in for recycling is pretty convenient. “It’s just as easy to take them into town as to do anything else with them,” explains Robert. “The staff at Advanced Agriculture in Gore are really helpful and the whole process is pretty pain free.” The Crawfords have been farming Arauatu, their 200 ha property in Gore, for the last 14 years, and say that while they don’t have a lot of containers, the empty containers they do use need to go somewhere: “We don’t need ...