Bad Homburg, February 2022
About half of the land in the Federal Republic of Germany is used for agricultural purposes. In total around 83 000 tons of crop plastics is used on farms in Germany per year. The IK-initiative ERDE offers a nationwide solution for the return and recycling of used crop plastics. ERDE is jointly supported by environmentally conscious members of the IK Industrievereinigung Kunststoffverpackungen e.V. in cooperation with RIGK GmbH.

In 2022 ERDE will continue to offer farmers and contractors a cost-effective, nationwide return option for their used crop plastics. An app available for download on the ERDE website provides quick and easy information on collection dates and locations in 2022. The collection targets for 2022 are ambitious: In addition to including mulch film in the national collection scheme, the goal is to collect and recycle 65 percent of the silage and stretch films put on the German market - about 34 000 tons. In addition to that, ERDE will increase the collection of bale nets by 20 percent to 720 tons. For baler twine the target is to increase collections by 45 percent to 200 metric tons.

The latter two collection groups are a challenge for the system: both products often end up as misdirected waste in the private recycling bin, where they disrupt established recycling processes. Baler twine can already be recycled within Europe, while recycling routes for bale nets will only open up this year. Pre-cleaned, bundled collection through collection systems like ERDE helps make recycling processes technically and economically viable.

Recycling routes also already exist for the fairly new collection fraction non-wovens – for this product group the goal is to increase the collection volume by at least 80 percent. The demand from farmers for disposal options is substantial and growing across all product groups.

Further Information:
Initiative ERDE
IK Industrievereinigung Kunststoffverpackungen e.V.
Dr. Lorena Fricke
Managing Director ERDE
Kaiser-Friedrich-Promenade 43
61348 Bad Homburg
Telefon +49 (0) 6172 92 66 30