70 | CMC Contracting enter recycling market CMC Contracting offers a collection service for agricultural plastic waste and is starting to move into other types of recyclable products. Kelly Deeks Long-standing agricultural contractor CMC Contracting has recently entered the recycling market, having made significant investment in plant and capacity to ensure it can cater for large volumes of agricultural plastic. 15 months ago, CMC Contracting bought Ken Murch Contracting which had a collection contract with Plasback. Ken did an amazing job promoting Plasback in Southland, making sure filled liners were collected from farms as quickly as possible. He was one of the first Plasback collectors to upgrade his service by adding a bigger crane to his collection truck, switching his hiab for an ex-forestry crane as the volumes he collected doubled year-on-year. CMC Contracting owner Peter Chisholm has bought a new, purpose-built truck and trailer and made some room in the yard at Pukerau near Gore for the back-log of recyclable agricultural plastic that has been building up in Southland and South Otago. “We’ve recycled about 2000 tons of bale wrap in the 15 months we’ve been in business,” Peter says. “Recycling with Plasback now accounts for about 14% of our business, and we have seen volumes pick up since Fonterra brought in its Co-operative Difference programme. Farmers are very much on board with it. A lot of them are quite passionate and they really want to recycle.” Peter says CMC Contracting offers a collection service for agricultural plastic waste and is RURAL SERVICES » CMC Contracting • to page 71 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
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