Following successful trials, the process will see the low-density polyethylene (LDPE) Miracle-Gro bags collected from more than 80 Dobbies garden centres and “recycled into new products” including garden furniture, plastic films and new bags.
A spokesperson for Veolia told letsrecycle.com that the sacks collected to date have been blended with standard agricultural films – mostly silage stretch films – and the resulting pellets have been mainly used as part of the raw material for refuse sacks.
Veolia did not say exactly where the material will go but said that “the collected bags will go to a number of plastic reprocessing facilities”.
The initiative aims to tackle the “increasing issue” of the approximate 100 million bags used for compost, soil and chipped bark each year.
Plastic films are not widely collected at the kerbside due to the reprocessing infrastructure not being able to cope with the diverse material.
Recycling process
Veolia explained that its service has set up collection points across 81 Dobbies Garden centres and a selection of other garden centre retailers, aiming to recycle an estimated 40 million bags that can be diverted from landfill.
Gardeners will be able to take back their empty and clean compost plastic bags in dedicated wooden recycling boxes to be collected ready for processing into new products.
Marcus Eyles, Dobbie’s horticultural director, said that anyone can bring in any compost packaging regardless of the brand or where it was purchased and place it in the dedicated recycling bins.
As agricultural films are product and not packaging, they are not eligible for PRNs. However, Veolia said it can set up “a simple protocol to claim PRNs, and future trials will separate the MPCs for recycling.”
‘Green recovery’
Keith Leonard, technical and performance director at Veolia UK and Ireland, commented: “Our route to carbon net zero and the circular economy means we have to look at new and innovative solutions to capture materials and re-use them, rather than relying on finite virgin resources.
“By effectively capturing these bags we will be able to process them into new sustainable products that will help the nation’s gardeners and boost a green recovery.”
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