PAMIRA® and recycling: A closed circuit
Plant protection product packaging is transformed into new raw materials
Plant protection products and liquid fertilisers are used in Germany year after year. Applications range from agriculture and horticulture to nurseries and golf courses. What all of these have in common is that the packaging of various agricultural chemicals will then become waste.
The goal of PAMIRA® is to collect as much packaging as possible and successfully reintroduce it into the material cycle through recycling. The fact that more than 90 per cent of all packaging recovered today finds a second life as new plastic products shows that we are on the right track!
The recovery cycle: trade, use, collection point
In the trade, pesticides and liquid fertilisers with the PAMIRA® logo printed on the packaging are sold. After the consumers have used up these chemicals, they rinse and empty the packaging and collect it, separating it from the lids.
The consumers then take their packaging to the nearest PAMIRA® collection point. Nearly 95 per cent of all packaging collected there consists of containers that can be recycled into high-quality materials. The rest is made up of folding cartons with aluminium inlets, bags, lids and sacks.
The recovery cycle: from waste to new product
The pesticides and liquid fertiliser packaging collected at our PAMIRA® collection points are recycled exclusively by partners within the European Union, mainly in Germany.
After the baled packaging bales arrive at the recycling facility, they are shredded and crushed into palm-sized pieces. They are then ground in wet mills to pieces approximately 10 millimetres in size. In the next step, various components such as paper labels are dissolved in a sink float tank. The plastic bits float up and are transported further along and dried. Then they are packed into big bags to be melted later into regranulate and processed further: They begin their second life as cable tupes, fence posts or objects for the maritime sector.
Safe recycling according to European ECPA guidelines
The packaging recovered via PAMIRA® has a certain risk potential for humans and the environment due to the chemicals it previously contained. For this reason, the chemical industry monitors recycling in accordance with the European-wide ECPA guidelines. These guidelines are issued by the association of plant protection product manufacturers and ensure that the regranulate produced from the packaging is not reused for consumer or residential goods, for example.
