Responsible Consumption and Production with Tony Wilson

Tony Wilson is the General Manager of Agrecovery –  a not-for-proift charitable trust who focusing on providing New Zealand’s sustainable solution for the recycling of farm plastics. In addition to his role at Agrecovery, Tony is a life long learner and is currently doing his 7th qualification – a Master’s at Massey University on the Sustainable Development Goals. Tony really enjoys whatever he is learning and taking it back into the office and implementing it.

Prior to his role at Agrecovery, Tony worked in a mixture of public and private sector jobs, and was most recently at Ministry for Primary Industries working in biosecurity and food safety. His role was very customer focused in working with customers, farmers, growers and the industry supply chaing to get to the end goal, which was often about making the biosecurity or food safety systems stronger. This led Tony to become more passionate about working in the private sector, so he took the leap and became the General Manager at Agrecovery.

All about Agrecovery

Agrecovery as been around for 15 years, and is run by the Agrecovery Foundation, a not-for-profit charitable trust. The approach is a Product Stewardship Scheme, which Tony describes as ‘recycling on steroids’.

“It comes with 26 rules or guidelines on what we need to do, and an example would be if there’s plastic down the West Coast of the South Island, Product Stewardship Scheme is required to find a solution. We can’t just operate in the small areas with a lot of volume. We have to provide customer focused solutions right across New Zealand. We currently have that up and running for the HDPE which agrichemical containers, but we’ve moved into small bags, which is your seed and fert bags, 25 kg’s and smaller. It’s fair to say it’s a time of change for Agrecovery.

The Ministry have created a regulated Product Stewardship Scheme where there’s much more rules and regulations around how we operate and that’s to give confidence to our government, to our brands and our overseas trading partners that we are sustainable so I’m really chuffed that they’ve created this platform for us to operate on. But again, it’s challenges now because recovery as I said two schemes at the moment but pretty shortly, it’s gonna be 15 different plastics to be recycled. So, it’s about establishing that and moving it forward, which will be change that Agrecovery has never seen before and the primary sector hasn’t seen before, but we are all calling for it.”

The approach taken by Agrecovery is a collaborative one, and everyone has a part to play – it isn’t Agrecovery doing it all by itself.

“So even if you’re a brand owner, you’ll pay a levy to us because it has to be free for the farmer and the grower, but you don’t pay a levy and walk away, you still have a role to play. The farmer has a role to play. There’s a number of service providers out here, they still have a role to play to make it work. You can’t just walk away and leave it to one person to do so. It’s about coordinating everyone to be working in the same direction.”

The approach is also about making it as easy for the farmer as possible, which is something that Tony emphasises as being very important. Customer-focus is of primary importance for Agrecovery.

“We’ve been at field days last week and we went and saw the brands and the brands are all really engaged to sign up. We’ve had hundreds of farmers come and have a chat to us and they’re really looking for solutions and they’re willing to do their part as well, which is fantastic. But the number of comments I heard from farmers saying that they’re storing their silage wrap or their small bags because they know that there’s a scheme coming at some time in the future. I think speaks volumes to the sustainability for farmers out there.

You’ve got to give the farmers some credit. They are trying to do the right thing but it’s about getting that messaging out there of how they can do the right thing and the key for us for Agrecovery, for success as a customer-focused service delivery, we need to make it so easy for the farmer that it’s effortless to be able to do the work.”

SDG #12: Responsible Consumption and Production

SDG #12 is focused around ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns, which is something that Agrecovery is focused on too. For Tony, there are three key targets under this goal that are quite relevant for farmers and what Agrecovery is doing.

Target 12.4: Achieve environmentally sound management of chemicals and all wastes throughout their life cycle, and significantly reduce their release to air, water and soil.

For Tony, target 12.4 is critical.

“The funny conversations I’m having out there from some of the brands as they’re saying, oh, we’ll use paper, or we’ll use hemp bags or flax bags but that’s still a linear approach. It doesn’t add to the life cycle because it’s just sending the product to the farm and the farmer still has problems there with what are they to do with it. So, there is a role for plastic out there, but it’s about making a solution for that to be able to come back again.”

Target 12.5: Substantially reduced waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse.

From their analysis, Agrecovery has found that there is about 10 tonnes of waste from farms produced every year.

“so if we can work around the plastics and eventually other types of products to find a solution to return it off the farm, so it’s not going to landfill, buried or burnt, that’s a real win.”

Target 12.6: Encouraging companies, especially large and transnational companies, to adopt sustainable practices and to integrate sustainability information into their reporting cycle.

“So that’s for us as being smart around innovation. And I’m not talking about clever packaging. I’m talking about environmentally sustainable packaging that can be reused and recycled. There are issues out there – people talk about going to biodegradable plastic, but that’s actually a problem for us because it can’t be recycled. So, it’s a contaminant for our plastic and it’s not biodegradable, it needs to be treated specially for it to properly biodegrade. And that’s in a proper commercial processing plant for that to happen. So it’s about making it knowledge available for farmers and growers and brands and stuff to understand how they can contribute under those measures for a better outcome.”

This is something that Tony sees as important, and his customer-focused approach allows him to look at solutions people are posing and critically think around whether they are actually going to reduce the burden of waste for the consumer. For example, some of the brands Tony works with want to use paper, but it still leaves a problem for the farmer, whether that is sending it to landfill or needing to bury a non-pure product.

“Everyone needs to think about how to get this plastic back again for recycling, or if they go to paper or if they go to other products, that still needs to be returned for some type of recycling”.

Tony’s take on sustainability and the SDG he most aligns with

For Tony, sustainability is about “not taking away from the future. We have a nice lifestyle that we all live now and it’s about using investment and innovation to really keep that level of life that we’ve become accustomed to, but not stealing from the future to make sure that as a planet that’s really worth being in.”

When it comes to which SDG Tony aligns with most personally, it’s a pretty tricky question for someone who is doing a postgraduate degree on the SDG’s. He has spent a lot of time diving into each one, and he acknowledges that they are all heavily connected and dependent on each other for success. However, for Tony, SDG #11 which focuses on sustainable cities and communities stands out for him.

“For me there’s been a lot of discussion around the farmer and the growers out there having to do more sustainable in the area… The cities have to play their part as well. There’s a lot of carbon that comes out of these areas, there’s a lot of waste that comes out of this area and the urban people need to pull these socks up as much as anyone else to make it better for everyone.”

Changing our approach to ‘waste’ on farm

When it comes to challenges facing the Ag industry, Tony remains focused on his expertise on waste, but puts down the opportunity to change the language from using the word ‘waste’, and talk about it as a ‘resource’.

“Plastic is a resource, we can do something with it, if you look after it. If you return it to us and it’s clean being kept out of the sunlight and UV light, we can actually turn it around and recycle it and turn it to that circular economy. Likewise with wood and all the other things out there, there are opportunities out there that we can reuse that or repurpose that and reduce that waste. But it’s a mindset change that the packaging or the by-product of what you’ve used as waste. It’s not, it’s a resource, it needs to be treated as such.”

For Tony, his take home message is simple, but one that can have a great impact on generating a circular approach to plastic management on farm.

“Simple message. Treat your plastic packaging as a resource. It has a value. If you can return it to us in a clean, dry state, we can do something with it. If it’s got mud on it or if it’s been left out in the UV, we can’t do anything with it. So, treat it like it is a resource. Treat it with a little bit of care and we can do something with it.”

Agrecovery has four key programmes currently, and more information for them can be found via the following links or on the podcast:

• Containers 0 – 60 litres: https://agrecovery.co.nz/programmes/container-recycling/
• Drums 61 – 1,000 litres: https://agrecovery.co.nz/programmes/drum-and-ibc-recycling/
• Small Bag recycling: https://agrecovery.co.nz/programmes/bags-ldpe/
• Agrichemical recovery: https://agrecovery.co.nz/programmes/chemical-disposal/

Listen to Tony’s podcast episode here: