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Incorporation of recycled material in flexible irrigation pipes : towards integrated agriplastic management
AUTHOR : Ido RAANAN, Head of Circularity & Impact, Corporate Sustainability, Netafim
Organising their reuse in the manufacture of new products means promoting the recycling of used plastics. This is even more important for agricultural plastics and this issue certainly deserves research efforts in their recovery, treatment and preparation to really close the loop and make this high-end resource a competitive secondary raw material.
In 2023 it is hard to find anyone unaware of global plastic pollution: governments, academic institutions and even the UN act to stop this pollution through various measures. One very popular approach is the circular economy, meaning reusing or recycling plastics. According to www.statista.com, global plastic production in 2020 was 367 million tonnes, and according to the FAO’s 2021 report in 2021, 12.5 million tonnes were used as direct inputs into agriculture. Agriplastics are a vital part of our modern-day food production. The 8th billion citizen of this planet was born while this article was being composed. By 2050 this number will increase by 25% – a lot more mouths to feed. Hence, modern agriculture can’t let go of plastics but must create a sustainable circular model that ensures clean soils, free of plastic contamination.
«Flexible irrigation pipes» (driplines)
Plastics serve in agriculture in many ways, and non-packaging plastics films represent ~60% of the annual global use. Driplines are part of 20% of «non-film» plastics, together with ropes and twines, but one of the most present on soil ([tons/hectare], second only to GH films). The need to remove driplines (DL) from the fields by the end of the agricultural season stimulated the evolution of a mechanical solution. All of the above made DL a natural candidate for circularity, but deploying, using and removing (retrieving) the DL from the field still does not represent the full circle. Driplines are usually separated into heavy-walled driplines (HWD), which can serve for many years in the field, and Thin-Walled Driplines (TWD/Tapes/flexible pipes), which can last in the field only a few years down to a few months.
The FAO has identified the tapes as a product that needs to be de-risked. The recommendation is by measures of the «6R» approach. The irrigation industry believes that the best practice is a holistic, circular system, including recycling the DL and reusing the recycled Polyethylene (rPE) in new DL.
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