Recycling would seem to be a no-brainer as so much good comes out of recycling empty containers and packaging materials.
But given the huge advantages and few drawbacks of recycling, it can be surprisingly difficult to get some new projects off the ground. There are many barriers for organizations like ours in encouraging the farming community to recycle more used pesticide containers.
Malaysia is a good example of the challenges faced when launching such an initiative but of the huge rewards that can be achieved if they are overcome.
A container recycling pilot project was launched in 2003 in the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia. The interesting thing about the scheme was that it was a demonstration project using economic incentives, in this case a voucher redemption scheme.
The overall aim of the pilot was to encourage people to adopt environmentally-friendly behaviour through incentives or disincentives. In the initial stages it involved academics, NGOs, producers, distributors and end users.
One of the challenges was the sheer number of stakeholders involved. These included the Department of Agriculture, Cameron Highlands District Office, Malaysian CropLife & Public Health Association, WWF and Malay Vegetable Growers Association.
With any pilot scheme there are plenty of lessons that are learnt from doing something for the first time. The really interesting outcome from running an incentive scheme was that the farmers interviewed discounted the need for incentives: they were just grateful that a mechanism was set up for them to dispose of what was originally scheduled waste as normal solid waste.
Convenience is also a big selling point. If it’s too hard to return empty containers then farmers just won’t bother. They have countless other tasks to take care of so recycling needs to be easy and convenient to encourage them to participate.
According to the stakeholders, the pilot project was a success and once brought to its conclusion it was taken up by the authorities in Malaysia and evolved into a national recycling programme. The scheme expanded to cover the rice areas of Sungai Besar, Selangor and the vegetable growing areas in Tangkak, Johore.
In 2006 when the recycling program went fully nationwide, with the help of Malaysian CropLife & Public Health Association (MCPA), the national recycling program was integrated into the then newly created RSPO’s (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil) Principles and Criteria (P&C).
This opened the door to for plantations to manage their empty pesticide containers in a legally approved manner by participating in the national recycling programme.
So what was the key to success?
- The Government had the political will – giving exemption to all triple rinsed containers from being classified as scheduled waste. Governments must be willing to work with the agricultural industry.
- The Government had the strong support of the industry.
- End users (e.g. plantations) should always actively seek Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) certification.
- The contractors who collect containers and recycle them are the key and were fully supported.
Matt Kovac is Director of Advocacy at CropLife Asia based in Singapore.
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