The proposed scheme would introduce regulations aimed at encouraging plastic waste produced on farms to be collected and recovered, however, the issue failed to be raised in Parliament before ministers broke for the summer recess and now must wait until Parliament sits again at the start of October.
A Defra spokesman told letsrecycle.com: “There has been a delay in taking forward the work on farm plastics in order to resolve issues around the scope and detail of the proposed producer responsibility scheme. We are continuing to work with the National Farmers' Union and other stakeholders with the aim of introducing regulations next year. We are aiming to consult on draft regulations in late autumn.”
A parliamentary debate is now expected to take place over the regulations in early 2009, with implementation to follow later in the year.
The Agricultural Waste Plastics Collection and Recovery Programme (AWP), which ran trials and research into identifying cost effective collection and recovery for the development of the producer responsibility scheme, confirmed that the Government had missed its initial opportunity but remained confident of its commitment to the project.
Ivan Good, project manager for AWP, said: “The Government has committed to a public consultation and for a number of reasons missed the opportunity before they went to recess, which often means a three month delay.”
Producer Responsibility
Defra consulted widely with all concerned stakeholders on the introduction of producer responsibility legislation for non-packaging farm plastics in 2005, with the overwhelming response from stakeholders across the farm plastic supply chain being that a mandatory producer responsibility scheme should be introduced, with multiple compliance schemes.
In September 2005, then Secretary of State for the Environment Margaret Beckett awarded the Agricultural Waste Stakeholders' Forum (AWSF) £1 million from BREW to develop the AWP research programme, to run practical trials and investigate cost effect methods of creating a producer responsibility scheme.
The AWP, which operated from September 2005 to September 2007, presented its findings to the Advisory Group on Farm Plastics, a subcommittee of the Advisory Committee on Packaging, which was designed to help develop the responsibility scheme and lessen the burden placed on farmers in the disposal of waste plastics.
The proposed scheme is different from other packaging regulations, such as the WEEE Directive, having not been drawn from European legislation with prescribed recycling targets. The legislation is intended to offer farmers a way to dispose of non-packaging plastic waste, in the wake of the Agricultural Waste Regulations 2006, which made it illegal to burn or bury waste plastics on farm land.
Research
According to research carried out by the Government-funded AWP programme, waste plastics – such as silage wrap and sheeting, polytunnel and crop film, string and netting – amount for as much as 85,000 tonnes of waste arising on British farms a year.
Aiming to research the quantity of agricultural waste plastics put on the market and the waste arising at Britain's 235,000 farms, the programme delivered life cycle analysis of the waste plastics and also a data management system to help producer responsibility.
The research also includes practical trials taking place across farms in the UK, with a study of baling options and logistics in Somerset and Dorset, means of reducing contamination of farm plastic film waste in Lincolnshire and a farm hub bring scheme for small producers and farms in remote areas of Shropshire.
The results of the trials were reported to the Government at the end of 2007 and were intended to inform draft regulations and policy development ahead of a public consultation before the break for recess.
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