Gisborne tops Agrecovery attendance

SAFE DISPOSAL: Chemwaste’s Bruce Gavin at the Gisborne Agrecovery day. Picture by Paul Rickard

Environmentally-friendly Gisborne farmers came out in droves this week to ensure proper disposal of chemicals and soft plastics like silage and bale wrap.

Agrecovery have been holding rural recycling and recovery events around New Zealand, with this week’s event at Rugby Park, so far the best attended of all.

“It was really good, we had nearly 70 people who turned up and I know we processed a lot of material,” Rural Waste One-stop-shop project manager Brian Vass said.

“We processed agricultural chemical containers, probably between one and two tonnes of those containers.”

Chemical residue in the containers, along with other chemicals were also processed.

“I think we will be getting up to about three tonnes of that (300,000 litres). In terms of silage and bale wrap and fertiliser bags, we had a full truck and trailer unit of those. So, that would probably be another two or three tonnes.”

The point of the event was to ensure chemicals and containers did not end up being buried or burnt on farms. The event also provided sustainable recovery options for the waste that could not be recycled.

“Some people have had some of these chemicals in their shed for a very long time. We often get chemicals that haven’t been sold for 20 or 30 years,” said Mr Vass.

Other collection points were held in Westport, Southland, Selwyn, Geraldine and Matamata.