Filenews 22 June 2022
The promotion of a draft regulations for individual or collective management systems for the recycling of plastic agricultural waste was announced today by the Minister of Agriculture, Rural Development and Environment, Costas, Kadis, in the context of a press conference on ensuring the production of recycled irrigation pipe from agricultural plastic waste, through the ReCyfilm Project.
As the Minister explained, according to an announcement by the Ministry of Agriculture, the management of plastic waste of agricultural origin "poses a huge challenge for our country, since, through studies carried out, the latest being that of Frederick University, it emerges that agricultural plastic waste of about one thousand tons per year is produced in Cyprus".
The recycling of materials such as soil cover membranes or plastic greenhouses, as Mr. Kadis stressed, will contribute to the achievement of the target set by the European Commission to increase the recycling of plastic waste produced in Europe, by more than 50%, by 2030.
With the aim of integrated management in this sector, the Minister said, a draft Regulations have been prepared that will soon be forwarded to the Legal Service for legislative technical control, according to which producers, i.e. those who place plastic products for agricultural use on the market, have the obligation to create individual or collective management systems, so that there is the possibility of delivering the waste produced to designated collection points.
The project of producing recycled irrigation pipe from agricultural plastic waste, Added Mr. Kadis, is an initiative of Elysee Irrigation Ltd, in collaboration with the Institute of Agricultural Research of the Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development and Frederick University.
It is noted that the ReCyfilm project, funded by the Research and Innovation Foundation under the "Restart 2016-2020" programs, is expected to contribute to the whole effort, giving an alternative to the way of management and utilization of certain plastic agricultural waste, turning it into useful materials that, as a raw material, are incorporated back into the production process.
"The result of the cooperation related to the Project of Elysee Irrigation Ltd, the Institute of Agricultural Research and Frederick University, was the creation of a new product, the Recyfilm irrigation pipe, on the basis of the principles of the circular economy," Mr. Kadis said, adding that the installation and use of a small amount of ReCyfilm pipes has already been piloted by the Department of Forests, at the Athalassa Environmental Information Center.
Concluding, the Minister congratulated Elysee Irrigation Ltd, the Agricultural Research Institute and Frederick University "for this important initiative, the results of which are commendable and encouraging, with a positive impact on the environment, society and the economy of our country" and wished to create other such innovative products, through similar waste recovery initiatives in the future.
