Farmlands Bolsters Agrecovery Scheme

Farmlands has taken its team-up with Agrecovery to the next level, making it easier for farmers and growers across the country to recycle soft plastics.

The Agrecovery scheme provides free recycling for plastic containers from more than 3,000 of the most common agchem, animal health and dairy hygiene products used in New Zealand’s rural sector. Farmlands is a longstanding supporter of Agrecovery – now it’s helping divert a wider range of plastics from landfill. “Our NRM, McMillan and Reliance Feeds bags are now recyclable and you can drop these off for recycling at over 70 Farmlands sites across Aotearoa. Our new packaging has 25 percent less plastic per bag than our previous range, but are still strong enough to be transported and used on farms,” says Charlotte Archer, an ESG & Sustainability Analyst at Farmlands.

Charlotte explains the process: “The farmer will sign up to Agrecovery online and they will place an order for their liners, which will then go directly onto the farm. They will then fill up those liners, with Woven PP #5 (woven polypropylene) or LDPE #4 (low density polyethylene) bags, with a coded zip tie associated to their Agrecovery account. “So they zip tie the liner, then bring that back into a collection site. Our Farmlands team will record that collection into a portal, so the data gets captured. Agrecovery will then come and collect that and take it to the recyclers.” Charlotte says Farmlands has offered recycling for hard plastics through Agrecovery since 2019. “We've got 23 sites across New Zealand that accept those, so we've put big containers on the sites for farmers to bring them back in,” she says. 

“Last year alone we were able to recycle 51 tonnes of plastic that would've traditionally been dealt with elsewhere. That was just the starting point in our journey and now we are focused on recycling those soft plastics as well.” Scott Brown, General Manager – Strategy and Animal Nutrition for Farmlands, says although proactive farmers already recycle their plastics, companies they supply also want to know what’s being recycled. “They’re looking at the farm environmental plans, asking, ‘What are you doing with waste?’ It's a clear trackable system that can tick all of those boxes. Whilst we're providing a solution for farmers, the drivers are coming from a number of other spaces. We're just wanting to make it easy for them to do that.” Charlotte says Farmlands is also planning to have in-store bins available for lifestyle customers, who want to bring in a few bags at a time, or do not have the volumes to fill an Agrecovery liner. “We are just looking at rolling that out at the moment, so watch this space.”