The German agricultural plastics recycling initiative Erntekunststoffe Recycling Deutschland (ERDE; www.erde-recycling.de) has increased its collection volume further in the third year after its inception. In 2016, it took back a total amount of over 5,412 t of agricultural film according to waste management specialist RIGK (Wiesbaden / Germany; www.rigk.de). In comparison to the previous year’s volume of 4,643 t, the amount of silo and stretch film collected has therefore increased by 16.6%.

For 2017, RIGK aims to increase the collected volume further. To achieve this, the company will expand its network of collection points well above the current number of 280. Any company that takes back plastics from the ERDE system can become an official collection point, be they agricultural dealers, contractors, machinery syndicates or waste managers. Also, system operator RIGK plans to include greenhouse and tunnel film into its portfolio of collectible agricultural films this year. In future, the initiative also wants to include nets, yarns, mulch films and asparagus films.

Under the umbrella of the plastics packaging association Industrievereinigung Kunststoffverpackungen (IK, Bad Homburg / Germany; www.kunststoffverpackungen.de), and in cooperation with RIGK as the system operator, ERDE organises the collection and recycling of used agricultural films made of LDPE (fraction 1) and LLDPE (fraction 2) by collection partners across Germany. Collection dates and locations are available at www.erde-recycling.de.

Together with the European Association of Plastics Recycling & Recovery Organisations (EPRO, Brussels / Belgium; www.epro-plasticsrecycling.org), RIGK co-organised the "2nd International Recycling Forum on Agricultural Plastics – Potential for Recycling" that was held from 26 - 28 April 2017 in Wiesbaden – see Plasteurope.com of 31.05.2017.