A new recycling service to help farmers meet their obligations under the Agricultural Waste Regulations has been launched in East Anglia.
Fertiliser firm Cropco, has bought a franchise from the Lincolnshire-based company AgriCycle, to start up a farm plastics and card recycling operation in Essex.
The new scheme will see Cropco offering their farm waste collection service to around 200 of its customers.
Under the New Agricultural Waste Regulations, farmers are obligated to dispose of their waste in a responsible manner, and have some responsibility for ensuring their waste is dealt with properly. The regulations came into force on May 15 2006, but farmers were given a year to register any exemptions, and are still allowed to burn pesticide containers until this May.
Cropco, which has received a small business development grant form Remade East, now collects materials including pesticide containers, vegetable packs and crop covering material, and has already signed up 40 customers.
The company bales up material at a sorting facility near Halstead in Essex before sending it for reprocessing, with all plastic being sent to a plastic recycling plant run by AgriCycle’s at Bath Farm at Caenby in Lincolnshire.
John Poulton, owner and managing director of Cropco Ltd, said: “As we deliver and collect to farmers at the same time we are the most efficient collector there can be. The legislation is forcing the issue of recycling and it seemed obvious for us to do it.”
AgriCycle, which takes material from 34 sites across the UK, runs one processing line for chemical containers and one for silage wrap and crop cover, which can process 10,000 tonnes of material a year. The resulting plastic is then sold for re-moulding.
Nicole T Wang on August 27th, 2008 at 7:30 am
Dear Sir or Madam:
I have your name form your company web page,
We are doing the plastic recycle business in China, and we have been doing plastic recycle like agriculture and farm plastic waste all over around the world for about 20 years experience , we recycle the plastic from United States of America , and Canada or Malaysia , France and the Spain , I am interested to know how you recycle the plastic from the Farm in Northern Ireland ? appreciate if you can show me some of the picture from the farm ‘s waste plastic after you have bale the plastic?
I am more interested to know if we have any chance to work together for the plastic recycling business From he farm.
Awaiting your reply
Best Regard
Nicole Wang