Nine successive years of growth for Agrecovery Rural Recycling show that farmers and growers across the country are continuing to increase their sustainable recycling practices. Provisional results for the year ending June 2015 stand at 15,495kg of unwanted chemicals and 240,732kg of recycled plastic packaging collected by the industry good programme. This reflects a 50% jump in container recycling over a two year period. According to Adrienne Wilcock, Chair and Dairy NZ trustee on the Agrecovery Foundation, it was also a year of milestones for Agrecovery. “We exceeded one million kilograms of container plastic recycled since our 2007 launch and we now have over 10,000 farmer and grower members, one of whom won a new Suzuki motorbike in our recent ...
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 ...
Source: Crop Life International Product packaging plays an essential role in ensuring that crop protection products are delivered safely to the intended customers. The containers in which products are sold are part of the plant science industry’s life-cycle approach to product stewardship. The industry is committed to ensuring that all containers are treated and disposed of safely and appropriately. Since the early nineties, the crop protection industry has implemented empty container collection programs in over 40 countries and more than 25 pilot programs in Eastern Europe as well as developing countries have now been initiated. Farmers in countries where there is a Container Management Programme return 66% of all plastic containers shipped. The majority of this plastic is recycled into ...
By the end of this month, New Zealand farmers and growers will have recycled one million kg of plastic containers through the Agrecovery Rural Recycling programme. “It’s a significant milestone for sustainability in the primary sector, so we’re celebrating by giving away a new Suzuki farm bike,” says Agrecovery Foundation Chair Adrienne Wilcock, a dairy farmer from Matamata who represents Dairy NZ on the Foundation. In the ‘Kick start your winter clean up’, anyone who recycles with Agrecovery before the end of June will go into the draw to win a Suzuki DR200 Trojan (RRP $5995), a popular model ideal for most rural applications. The Agrecovery container programme started in 2007, offering farmers and growers free recycling of plastic containers ...
Agrecovery Rural Recycling has scored a double win for farmers and growers with the introduction of on-farm collection for large drums and with dairy hygiene brand GEA FIL joining the programme. The new service offers free on-property collection for empty drums and IBCs (from 61 to 1000 litres) from fourteen participating brand owners of agrichemical and dairy products. The brands are Agrisource, Adama (formerly Agronica), Bayer, BioAg, Donaghys, Etec Crop Solutions, FIL, Farmguard, Orion Crop Protection, Post-Harvest Solutions, Ravensdown, Synergy, Syngenta and Yara. More brands are expected to join as customer demand grows. “A solution for larger packaging is a natural next step for Agrecovery,” says Adrienne Wilcock, who represents DairyNZ on the Agrecovery Foundation. “Large scale farmers, spray contractors ...
Our target, your challenge… Over 8 years Agrecovery members have recycled nearly 1 million kilogrammes of plastic containers. Congratulations if you have contributed to this result! Our current target is to collect 230 tonnes in the 12 months ending June 2015. By 2017 we’re aiming for 330 tonnes, or about 50% of all the packaging sold by our participating brands. We won’t achieve these targets with a ‘business as usual approach’, so we’re asking all industry members to accept our challenge to make burning and burying plastic a thing of the past, and get recycling! How can you help reach Target 230? Already recycling? Great, but are all your containers eligible for free recycling? Could you encourage other suppliers to ...
The Agrecovery Foundation has issued their Annual Report for 2013/2014.
It was a successful year for the programme and work is well under way to achieve even more in 2014/2015.
Key successes for the past financial year:
39% increase in collected container volume
26% increase in recovered chemicals
Financially sound position – increases options for investment to further improve collection rates; and increases our ability to recover more chemicals.
Key focus for the Foundation for the current financial year:
Increasing our collected container volume
Working with government and stakeholders for priority product status
Chair’s Report
The year under review was the second successful year of the board’s five-year strategy, which has the central goal of increasing the amount of waste plastic and chemical removed from rural areas.
In the year ...
The first two container collection events for the 2014/2015 financial year got off to a cracking start.
More than 1400 containers were collected at Te Puna (BOP) on 12 November and more than 2300 at Darfield (Canterbury) on 24 November.
Thanks to all those farmers and growers who took part and to Farmlands for hosting both events!
Check out our upcoming ...
Farmlands has increased its support of Agrecovery’s container recycling network with a new collection site in Pahiatua.
Farmlands stores host 14 of 71 collection sites around New Zealand, where farmers and growers can recycle the empty plastic containers of more than 3,000 commonly used chemicals for free.
Pahiatua Business Manager Brian Abbot is pleased to offer the service to local farmers and growers.
“We tested customer demand with a one-off event that saw more than 800 containers delivered in one day. That showed the volume was there and customer feedback was positive, so opening a permanent site seemed the natural thing to ...
Agrecovery Foundation is calling for councils to introduce and enforce burning bans after a recycling surge followed the introduction of a burning ban in Canterbury in January 2014.
Container recycling in the Canterbury region increased 113 percent to 36,140 kg in the six months after the introduction of the ban, compared to 16,960 for the same period last year.
“We have seen a clear link between this ban and an increase in recycling in the Canterbury region,” says Agrecovery Foundation Chair, Graeme Peters.
“It’s hard to argue with the numbers. The positive stand by Environment Canterbury has had a marked impact on the environment and we are calling on other councils to implement new bans or do more to enforce existing bans.
“In ...
