Defra announces producer responsibility for farm plastics

The regulations will cover all of the UK except Northern Ireland, which will consider the issue following a consultation.

” A regulatory regime will provide the right signal and the certainty to stimulate investment in collection and recycling “
– Ben Bradshaw
Although producer responsibility is already in place for packaging waste that arises on farms, Defra wants a collection system to ensure both packaging and non-packaging plastic waste is recycled.

The government is setting up an advisory committee to help develop statutory producer responsibility regulations, while research funded by Defra's BREW initiative will assess how best to collect farm plastic waste.

The Department estimates that about 86,000 tonnes of waste plastic are generated on farms in England each year, including 67,000 tonnes of non-packaging material.

Minister
Local environmental quality minister Ben Bradshaw said the introduction of producer responsibility for farm plastics came as a result of Defra's consultation on introducing waste regulations to the agricultural sector..

Mr Bradshaw said: “We have considered carefully whether to bring in regulations to deal with farm plastics or whether to use a voluntary approach. Responses to our consultation on the Waste Management Regulations indicated that the majority of stakeholders were in favour of the legislation including, importantly, the businesses who would bear the cost – the producers of agricultural films themselves. These companies were unanimously in favour of legislation.”

The minister argued that a voluntary system of producer responsibility would be susceptible to “free riding” – companies that avoid their environmental responsibilities.

He said: “Voluntary schemes are susceptible to free riding, a problem which led to the collapse of a previous voluntary scheme. Therefore, in this case, legislation is the right approach. It avoids importers undercutting domestic prices and gaining a competitive advantage. A regulatory regime will also provide the right signal and the certainty to stimulate investment in collection and recycling.”

New rules bringing farms in line with other industrial sectors with respect to waste management controls and permitting are due to be laid before Parliament soon. These will ban “farm dumps” and the open burning of plastic waste.

National farm plastic recycling scheme FarmPlas Network has launched a new website – www.farmplas.co.uk – to help farmers deal with their waste. Ed Jones of the FarmPlas Network explained: “We will be using the website to illustrate the opportunities for other farmers to themselves become collection schemes.”