A recently-formed working group of the European Association of Plastics Recycling and Recovery Organisations (EPRO, Brussels / Belgium; www.epro-plasticsrecycling.org) is working on the development of new, forward-thinking solutions to address the disposal of agricultural plastic waste.

During their lifetime, plastic-based products such as films, bale nets, yarns, irrigation hoses and packaging act as versatile and valuable aids to the agricultural economy. Yet, at the end of their useful service life, they turn into awkward waste requiring disposal, and the most frequently-chosen is landfill, often the worst route, environmentally, the association says. Despite a lot of goodwill in the industry, there remains a lack of sustainable and practical disposal options in the majority of European countries, the association says, and there is no pan-European legislation relating to the recovery of non-packaging plastics used in agriculture.

Almost half the plastics used in agriculture are processed for use in films. Around 1.2m t/y of agricultural plastics require disposal, yet only 22% are recycled. Over half, more than 600,000 t/y, ends up in landfill. Around 26% is used for energy recovery. EPRO says that there is enormous room for improvement adding that to date, only a handful of European countries have efficient systems. These are either the result of legal requirements, such as in Ireland or Iceland, or of voluntary industrial, trade and agricultural initiatives, for instance in Germany, France, Norway, Sweden and Spain.

At the beginning of March 2011, EPRO initiated a new, cross-border work group entitled “Agricultural-plastics”. It currently has 14 members from France, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Germany, Ireland, Switzerland, the UK, Spain, Belgium and Romania. The majority of its members are representatives of national, established or emerging recovery schemes. The group’s aim is the exchange of information on existing disposal solutions, the ecological and economical enhancement of existing recovery systems and the provision of support for new systems in countries where, to date, no relevant activities have been undertaken. A further objective is the initiation of intensive discussions with external partners from industry, trade and agriculture.

In the majority of European countries – particularly in eastern Europe – there is still no controlled recovery system. Since February 2010, plastics recovery specialist and German EPRO member RIGK (Wiesbaden; www.rigk.de) has been providing its nationwide service “Pelle” (www.pelle-service.de) all-in-one recovery service for the recycling of used film from agriculture in an environmentally friendly manner, and has added bale nets and yarns to the service in 2011.