Circular plastics

The project tackles the challenge of agricultural plastic waste, which is poorly managed on farms, often contaminated, costly to collect, and difficult to recycle. Farmers, waste handlers, municipalities, private collectors, and regional/national policymakers need capacity building to move from micro-plastic soil pollution and wasted resources to circular management of plastics at farms. Farmers lack knowledge, effective collection services and clear guidance for proper use, storage, and return of plastics; waste handlers struggle with contaminated, low-value materials and unprofitable logistics; policymakers lack insights into farm-level realities and harmonized standards. Barriers include limited awareness, weak co-operation among actors, poor quality of collected plastics, fragmented regulations, low profitability for collectors, and weak demand for recycled agri-plastics. 

The project helps overcome these barriers by providing farmer-friendly training, awareness campaigns, and online courses, transfer of enabling technologies such as compactors, mobile reception, and washing/pre-treatment systems, and exchange of transferable logistics and business models. Outcomes will benefit farmers through economic waste services and healthier soils, waste collectors through higher-quality feedstock, and retailers/producers via improved producer responsibility. Project supports harmonisation of the farm plastic management policies in the macro-region for circularity.

Further information

Project manager

Maiju Kurtti

firstname.lastname@jamk.fi