What will it take to persuade more farmers to recycle their empty crop protection product containers?
The Crop Protection industry is trying to find solutions to the perennial challenge of encouraging farmers to recycle pesticide containers. Pilot schemes and programmes across Asia have been a popular choice designed to improve container management recycling rates.
Unfortunately, Asia has one of the lowest recycling levels in the world, with about 30% of containers returned and processed for re-use. This is significantly lower than other regions although developed markets have experienced far more environmental and political pressure to recycle containers.
Part of the problem is the huge number of small and fragmented farm holdings dotted across the Asia Pacific region. This makes it much harder to get container management messages relayed to farmers, while convincing them that the small numbers of containers they often discard create environmental concern.
One of the key messages to convey is that the empty containers have plenty of uses once they are properly processed, cleaned and recycled. These include fence-posts, parking cones or drainage pipes. Schemes are exploring how some of this value can be passed back to farmers to incentivise them to hand back empty containers for recycling.
The Crop Protection industry is very much aware of this low figure and is determined to improve recycling rates with a host of promising and already successful initiatives taking place across Asia. These programmes are being delivered by both regional and national CropLife associations.
For example in the Hubei Province in central China, a pilot scheme was launched which involved the training of more than 2,000 farmers, service workers and retailers into safe container management.
The project created a high level of awareness within China and former Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao attended one of the events. More importantly, after the programme rice farmers reported higher levels of satisfaction with their crop protection services while boosting their incomes.
Other successful programmes have taken place in more developed markets such as Canada and Australia. For example, CleanFARMS was developed by CropLife Canada and has now become a global brand within container management programmes around the world. The CleanFARMS standard sets strict guidelines for the proper management of agricultural waste and has become a non-profit organisation in its own right.
Australia runs a national programme called drumMUSTER for the collection and recycling of containers, of which CropLife Australia is a partner. Established 13 years ago, drumMUSTER has disposed of over 20 million chemical containers.
Asia has yet to establish such a long-running and successful container management programme but the industry can at least see what the possibilities are.
Currently there is a real buzz about an established recycling project in Malaysia which involves a voucher redemption scheme for farmers. Interestingly, feedback from some farmers suggests they are not interested in financial reward, but just want a convenient way to return pesticide containers.
This is definitely food for thought for the industry weighing up the financial costs of such programmes.
Matt Kovac is Director of Advocacy at CropLife Asia based in Singapore.
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