| 23 helping farmers achieve their targets AGRONOMY » Molloy Ag From arable spraying Molloy Agriculture now provides a whole farm service, from the selection of paddocks and seed, look at soil health and produce recommendations that feed through to the spray application side of the business. For information on the Plasback scheme, or to book a collection contact Plasback on 0508 338 240 or visit www.plasback.co.nz FOR FARMERS & GROWERS RECYCLING SOLUTIONS R Plasback’s Commercial Manager Neal Shaw often jokes that the company will be regarded as an overnight success, when it will have been providing a Product Stewardship scheme for 20 years recovering used farm plastics for recycling. “We’re doing something that no one else wanted to do. No one was prepared to own the problem and the owners of Plasback have committed to managing the issue. Over time the industry, the agricultural community and society as a whole has caught up. We’re doing something positive for the environment, and taking a lead in solving an issue. There’s a big difference between talking about something, and actually doing something. There’s an awful lot of ‘greenwashing’ in the market, where people say they are doing sustainable things, but in reality they’re just talking about it. We’re actually doing something.” Plasback was established in 2006 specifically to recover bale wraps and pit covers. In its first year of operation the company collected 9 tonnes of plastic from farms around New Zealand. In 2021 2600 tonnes were collected and in 2022 5500 tonnes of plastic were collected. “The significant growth of material collected over the last two years has been driven by a couple of things,” says Neal. “The Fonterra Cooperative Difference Scheme was introduced to Fonterra shareholders, who are incentivised to recycle their farm plastic waste. There’s also a growing awareness around social responsibility. We’re currently collecting about 50% of the volume of bale wrap and pit covers that go into the market.” Currently, a voluntary scheme where the farmer invests in the recycling bin and liner and pays for the waste to be collected, next year the Government will move to a mandated scheme. “That will mean every business supplying plastics into the market will pay a recycling levy. Instead of a farmer deciding to recycle and paying for that service on a user basis, the recycling cost will be built into their product and it will collected for recycling.” Based in Christchurch, Plasback operates a national network of independent collectors, enabling every farm in the country to be serviced. “The plastic is brought back to the yard and baled into a bale of plastic weighing about 1.2 tonne. Those bales are containerised and exported to Asia where they are turned into a resin, which is used to make builders film/black polyethylene. Some of the bales are processed in New Zealand, and go into a product called Tuff Board which is used for various things including horse floats, trailer decks, and calving pens.” Sustainability pioneers “When we diversified into spraying onions and potatoes it extended our season from four months of the year to eight months of the year. Getting into plastics collections, means that we can now carry more full-time staff, that can be utilised in the spraying off-season. We run 33 staff made up of full-time staff and seasonable staff. We’ve always tried to focus on staff development and progression through the business, making sure there is support and training in place for people to succeed.”
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDc2Mzg=