Plastic recycler and packaging manufacturer Pact Group has developed AgriG8, Australia’s first recycled plastic agricultural chemical container, which will play a key role in the new circular Drums-to-Drums initiative, driven in partnership by Pact, CropLife, and AgSafe.
Using the latest packaging manufacturing technology at its recycling facilities in Melbourne and Brisbane, Pact is making the new AgriG8 containers in 10L, 15L and 20L variants with up to 30 per cent recycled high density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic.
Pact says it has undertaken extensive testing to ensure the containers are compliant with design requirements for chemicals used in the agricultural sector, such as fertilisers and insecticides. The company has invested in multilayer extrusion blow-moulding equipment that allows it to encapsulate the recycled content layer between two virgin layers of HDPE.
The AgriG8 containers are central to the new circular Drums-to-Drums initiative, the result of a partnership between Pact, CropLife, the national peak industry organisation for the plant science sector, and its not-for-profit stewardship subsidiary, Agsafe.
Drums-to-Drums aims to close the loop on agricultural chemical containers by collecting, recycling and remaking them into new agricultural chemical packaging. The initiative is an evolution of the internationally-acclaimed agricultural product stewardship program, drumMUSTER, a national program for the collection and recycling of plastic agricultural and veterinary chemical drums. It was started by CropLife 25 years ago, and to date has collected more than 40 million drums from its 830 collection points across regional Australia.
“Plastic packaging plays an essential role in Australia’s agricultural industry by protecting seed, agricultural chemicals and pelletised pesticide for their safe transport, storage and use,” said chief executive officer of CropLife Australia, Matthew Cossey.
“The plant science industry takes whole-of-life stewardship of its products very seriously, investing heavily in genuine initiatives that ensure we’re responsibly managing products at each stage of its lifecycle.
“Through our existing investment in Agsafe and new partnership with Pact Group, CropLife and its members will be able to take the program even further and support Australia’s transition towards a circular economy,” Cossey.
“Growers can support Drums-to-Drums by continuing their existing participation in drumMUSTER, which involves ensuring their chemical drums are taken to any of the 830 collection points across Australia. There really is no excuse for storing or disposing of chemical drums on-farm or in any other environmentally unfriendly manner,” said Agsafe general manager, Alicia Garden.
According to Pact, it currently recycles about 450,000 of the drumMUSTER containers per year but until now technical challenges have meant that containers could only be recycled into plastic pellets to make other products, such as irrigation pipes and bollards.
Pact general manager Industrial Manufacturing, Ben Andrews said: “Pact is committed to creating a strong local circular economy that diverts plastic waste materials from landfill, recycles it and then remakes it into new products.”
“The Drums-to-Drums initiative demonstrates that industry-led initiatives are often best placed to develop effective solutions for industry-specific needs,” Andrews said.
Under the new Drums-to-Drums program, Pact is aiming to collect and recycle 900,000 agricultural chemical containers (equating to 1080 tonnes of plastic) from drumMUSTER annually to make its new AgriG8 recycled containers.
