Yara Australia to Support Sustainable Management of Packaging Waste

Fertiliser manufacturer Yara Australia has partnered with the Farm Waste Recovery program in a bid to sustainably manage their disposable packaging waste.

Now in its fourth year, the program works in partnership with manufacturers, associated industry and local councils to facilitate the collection, recycling or disposal of plastic waste generated on farms in Australia each year.

It is estimated that more than 80,000 tones of polypropylene and polyethylene bags are delivered to Australian farms each year. These include 10 million bulk bags and 200 million sacks used in the fertiliser and stockfeed sectors. The majority of these bags are illegally burned on-farm or end up in landfill.

Working in partnership with manufacturers, industry associations and local councils, Farm Waste Recovery aims to recover as much of this waste as possible. This year’s target is 600,000 bulk bags, which is the equivalent of 2,000 tonnes of plastic and 5,000 cubic metres of landfill space.

This represents a potential saving of $1.25 million in landfill costs, which has flow-on benefits for local government, the community and the environment.

Rhaleigh Cereno, Yara Australia supply-chain manager, said the company is delighted to support this important initiative. “Yara is a leading supplier of fertiliser to the horticulture and broadacre sectors and a large portion of this is sold in bags,” Cereno said.  “Our overriding concern is to ensure these bags are removed from the environment and ideally, to have them recycled. This is an opportunity to demonstrate our genuine commitment to environmental sustainability.”

This is a early April press release on this topic from Yara.  It is unclear where and how it will operate, and doubt it will in the NT.

But be aware - and ask if your Yara packaging will be collected!  The numbers on fertiliser bag waste are certainly staggering!!