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The Agrecovery Rural Recycling programme provides sustainable solutions for managing ‘on-farm’ waste for farmers, growers, contractors and other primary producers in New Zealand.
The Agrecovery Foundation is a not-for-profit charitable trust which governs the Agrecovery programme. It was developed with the support of farmer and grower groups, local government, the agrichemical industry and central government.
Agrecovery Trustees are:
 Horticulture New Zealand
Federated Farmers
Agcarm
Fonterra
Environment Waikato (for local government)
Agrecovery seeks to educate the public to reduce waste and encourage conscious purchasing decisions by supporting the brands that participate in Agrecovery.
There are currently three programmes operating nationwide in New Zealand:
Agrecovery Containers
Agrecovery Wrap
Agrecovery Chemicals
Agrecovery Containers
Launched in 2007, the Agrecovery Container Recycling programme provides a sustainable recycling programme for 1-60 litre plastic agrichemical, animal health and dairy hygiene containers. The programme is supported by a large number of leading companies in these industries, who collected a levy for every litre/kilo of eligible product place on the New Zealand market. This levy is then paid to the Agrecovery Foundation to operate the programme.
Farmers, growers and other users can take their eligible triple rinsed plastic containers to the nationwide network of collection sites . Only containers from participating brand owners can be recycled through the programme free of charge. Other brands / products require the purchase of User Pay stickers.
A unique aspect of the Container programme is the Agrecovery truck which services the collection sites when they have accumulated sufficient volumes of plastic containers. The truck is thought to be a world first with its state of the art mobile shredding technology, which allows the containers to be shredded into small plastic chips. The plastic chip is then recycled by a New Zealand company and remanufactured into a variety of uses including underground utility cable cover. The processing and appropriate reuse of collected plastic within New Zealand is a key part of the Agrecovery philosophy.
Agrecovery Wrap
The Agrecovery Wrap Recycling programme provides a cost effective, sustainable solution for disposal of the estimated 4,000 tonnes of baled silage wrap used nationwide every year.
The programme is a simple one, allowing farmers to purchase packets of Wrap recycling bags from most rural retailers or direct from Agrecovery. Each packet of Wrap bags costs $67.50 (inc. GST) and contains 5 bags, enough to recycle approximately 60 wraps – that’s around $1 per round bale.
There are no hidden costs. All costs, including collection, are contained within the bag price.
Farmers are instructed to “shake, roll and stuff” used silage wrap into the recycling bags and then log the full bags with Agrecovery for collection.
Collection events will take place around the country as sufficient volumes of bags have been logged for collection.
Silage wrap will also be processed in New Zealand and again processed into appropriate end use plastics.
Agrecovery Chemicals
The Agrecovery Chemicals programme is not a recycling programme, but rather provides users of chemicals in agriculture a safe nationwide system for the collection and disposal of unwanted and expired chemicals.
Agrecovery Chemicals takes over from the regional and local council delivered and government supported programmes of retraction and recovery which have been undertaken in recent years.
It’s funding will come from three streams: funds contributed by participating brand owners under the existing Agrecovery Container programme levy, Government contributions and user charges.
Users can booked chemicals for disposal via a custom built online booking system on the Agrecovery website or by contacting Agrecovery directly.
Once a certain volume of chemical bookings have been received for a region, a collection event will be scheduled. Users who have booked are advised of the location of the event in their region. Specialised contractors will operate at these collection events to safely handle the chemicals booked for disposal.
Some chemicals will be sent off-shore for destruction while others will be disposed of within New Zealand.
My Agrecovery Smart Member Services
3R Group has commissioned a custom built software system for Agrecovery called My Agrecovery or Smart Member Services. The system allows programme users to manage their bookings online, purchase Agrecovery products, print reports, compliance certificates for participation, among other things.
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