Another area in which GreenCollar has been working hard to develop land management and environmental project solutions is in relation to the disposal of plastic used in agricultural activities.
GreenCollar staff were very concerned about the impact of plastic waste on the environment, so they represented this to management in a staff meeting about areas the company could look to work in.
As a backdrop to this, international environmental standards organisation, Verra, had drafted its international Plastic Waste Removal Standard. In 2020, it chose GreenCollar to design a plastic project that would meet the requirements of the draft standard and be one of 24 plastic projects piloted various places around the world.
Through our work on Reef Credits in far north Queensland, GreenCollar was aware that banana growers had long faced an issue of waste management in relation to the disposal of the plastic wrapped around the banana bunches on the trees to protect them from insect species, chemicals and other environmental factors.
Having forged relationships in this region, GreenCollar was able to partner with the Australian Banana Growers Council, Dotti Farms in Innisfail and local family-run waste management company, MAMS.
GreenCollar’s project design was simple. Once use of the plastic bunch covers was complete, they would be collected, weighed and recycled. This process would be independently verified. Each tonne of plastic would generate one plastic credit. These could be purchased by businesses wishing to offset their plastic use which, ideally, they would be trying to reduce as much as they possibly could. The profit from the sale of these credits could then be reinvested in improving farm processes that produced plastic waste, as well as in expanding the projects to scale.
The pilot project was completed, producing 32 Plastic Credits that were verified by Verra. This equates to 32 tonnes of plastic that did not enter the environment. We are now considering everything we learned with a view to refining our approach.
