The farming industry produces a wide range of non-natural wastes ranging from packaging and plastic films to animal health products and machinery. The total quantity for the UK is estimated to be at around 0.5 million tonnes.

Currently much of this waste is disposed of on-farm. However, changes to the Waste Management Regulations which will come into force by the end of this year will mean that non-natural agricultural waste will be subject to the same controls which apply to all other industries.

This means that the use of farm tips and the unregulated burial and burning of agricultural waste on farms will be prohibited.

In future, farms will have the following options for waste disposal:

• store on-farm for up to 12 months before disposal
• take your waste to a suitably licensed facility (landfill, transfer station, etc)
• transfer your waste to a suitable licensed contractor (skip, container, etc)
• register your recycling as exempt from licensing (composting, land application, etc), or;
• apply for a licence to continue on-farm disposal.

The costs associated with obtaining and maintaining Waste Management Licences make it very unlikely for it to be viable for all farms to operate legally.

Therefore, the only option in the majority of cases will be for waste to be transferred for disposal or recovery to a licensed site. This is the normal route for materials in other industries, where the burden of waste disposal is accepted. In agriculture, any such additional burden is likely to weaken fur ther an already economically challenged industry.

RACEnvironment, with assistance from Waste Recycling Environmental (WREN) through the Landfill Tax Credit Scheme, and the support of Oxfordshire County Council and the NFU, is seeking to assess the feasibility of a cost-effective farm/rural waste recovery/recycling scheme across Oxfordshire with a view to expansion onto a regional or national basis.

The projected outcome is a structure for a part self-financing co-operative waste  lection system using funds gained from the recycling and recovery values of agricultural and rural wastes to subsidise its administration and running costs.