Almost 90% increase in farm plastics packaging waste dropped at bring centres

With two-thirds of IFFPG bring centres now carried out, there has been a massive 88% increase in the number of bags of farm plastics packaging waste collected for recycling since 2018.

Farm plastics packaging waste consists of fertiliser bags, feed bags and plastic drums.

There has also been a 33% increase in the number of netting waste bags collected to date, while wrap and sheeting waste figures are similar to last year which was a record year.

Cost effectiveness

The particularly impressive results for farm plastics packaging, which have resulted in 10,658 bags collected this year compared to 5,658 bags collected at the same time last year, can be largely attributed to the growing awareness among farmers of the convenience and cost effectiveness of using IFFPG bring centres.

Farmers can recycle a half tonne sized bag of packaging waste for €10 at one of IFFPG’s 235 bring centres.

In the case of bulk fertiliser bags, the inner lining must be removed and presented separately for recycling, while plastic drums must be triple rinsed to ensure that contaminants are removed before been made available for recycling.

A 33% increase in netting waste collections can be mainly attributed to the introduction of the levy on netting and twine products last year. This allowed IFFPG to reduce collection charges to farmers from €15 to €5 per half tonne sized bag.

IFFPG expects to break the 1,000t mark for netting collections for the first time this year, up from 850t last year. The total volume of netting and twine products placed on the market each year is approximately 2,700t.

In terms of silage wrap and sheeting waste, almost 18,000t have been collected to date, which represents a slight increase of 1% on last year which was a record year.

The strong performance of this waste stream is somewhat surprising as it comes on the back of a very short and mild winter, which saw reduced amounts of fodder used and is due to an increase in the number of farmers using the bring centres.

Best performing bring centre

The best performing bring centre to date this year was Listowel Mart, where 421t of farm plastics was collected. This was 4t more than was collected at Kilmallock Mart, which was IFFPG’s best performing bring centre last year.

The busiest bring centre for farmer numbers was once again Ballinarobe Mart, where 658 farmers recycled their plastics waste over two days in early May.