Environment Minister Nicola Grigg has announced details of a regulated nationwide Rural Recycling Scheme that will replace New Zealand's voluntary farm-plastics programmes from 1 March 2027. Speaking at a plastics recovery facility near Christchurch, she said the scheme would expand recycling of agrichemical containers, bale wrap and silage sheet through a single take-back system managed by the not-for-profit Agrecovery Foundation.

The voluntary schemes run by Agrecovery and Plasback currently collect less than half of the in-scope plastics that farmers and growers use; the rest goes to landfill or is buried or burned on farms. Farmers had asked for a simple take-back system that accepts all the usual plastic farm products in one place, Ms Grigg said.

Producers of the plastic — companies supplying silage wrap or fertilisers and agrichemicals in plastic packaging — will contribute a small fee, typically about 1% or less of the product price, to fund a free nationwide network of collection sites and services. The existing regional network of around 240 take-back sites will be expanded, and recycling will run in tandem with collection of unused end-of-life agrichemicals.

Take-back will also be open to forestry, manufacturing, hospitality, tourism and sport users of agrichemicals and farm plastics, to councils and contractors, and to households for pest and weed products. Participation is compulsory for producers of regulated products, which target agricultural uses and a small set of household agrichemicals; products used in volume by other industries, such as general sanitisers and detergents, are not covered but may join voluntarily.

Agrecovery chief executive Tony Wilson told Rural News that its polling showed 90% of farmers support the scheme. The voluntary programmes continue until the regulated scheme starts.

Source: Rural News Group