Celebrating 22Years of
Farm Plastic Collection
and Long Relationship with the
Largest UK Recycler of Farm Waste

Birch Farm Plastics is a farming family business with the second generation now at the helm. The business was established in 1989 by Peter and Marilyn Birch to collect waste farm plastic from a limited geographical area in Wales. With over twenty years of farming experience they decided to diversify to a project that could run alongside the farming enterprise and possibly allow their children to be involved.
Processing 20 tonnes in their first year, the Birches have since expanded to collect over 5000 tonnes in 2008 for recycling. They are now the selected supplier of waste agricultural film to British Polythene Industries (BPI) for the whole of the UK.
The company currently has a network of collection Agents covering the UK. An additional network of collection centres also enables customers to drop off smaller quantities. These centres are placed at strategic locations to bulk up farm plastic for direct transport to the reprocessing facility at BPI. Birch Farm Plastics currently collects from over 6000 farms in Wales alone.

“The business of full time farming and part time plastic collection has revolved a complete circle to becoming part time farmers and full time plastic collectors” comments Cheryl Birch.
“Farmers have proven they care for the environment, with many of our customers having disposed of their plastic waste in the proper manner for over 15 years prior to the current regulations”.

Birch Farm Plastics sorting and baling site is near Swansea in South Wales. Each lorry is specially adapted with self loading and weigh facilities so that each grabfull can be weighed at each farm for the farmer to decide how much waste he or she would like taken away on each collection. Once collected, the waste is then sorted and baled into 1.25 t bales and transported to BPI for reprocessing.
Core items for recycling include silage wrap, silage sheeting, feed/sawdust bags, polytunnel and crop film and fertilizer bags. They will also collect netting/string/triple rinsed containers but these are not currently recycled by BPI.

Help and Support - all part of the service.

Birch Farm Plastics is always looking at ways of helping farmers to make it easier to recover waste plastics and reduce costs of responsible disposal. Getting together with neighbours etc can reduce costs - and minimising the plastics contamination by changing ways of storing and using bales can also help.
Plastic collected under the BFPC scheme does not have to be clean as the BPI plants are structured to deal with contaminated polythene.
“We do try and encourage farmers to keep plastic away from muck if possible- cleaner plastic weighs less and brings down costs to both customer and reprocessor, but as farmers we do appreciate that farm plastic is dirty by nature.”

Farmers are also supported in complying with the law through the processing of waste transfer notes and helpful free advice. Birch Farm Plastics regularly liaise with the Environment Agency to ensure farmers stay fully up to date of any change in regulations.

From Useless to Useful

The waste collected and sorted by Birch Farm Plastics is taken to British Polythene Industries (BPI) in Wales and Scotland- the largest re-processor of agricultural waste in the UK. The waste is then transformed into pellets, which are then used to produce pit liners, refuse bags and the hardwearing plastic lumber used for the manufacturing of street and garden furniture, fencing etc.

The working partnership between the Birches and BPI is all about two long established companies getting together to provide a sustainable future for the recovery and recycling of agricultural waste.

BPI recycled products have an enviable reputation as the leader in the field of polyethylene recycling. They are the largest recycler in Europe with the ability to reprocess in excess of 80,000 tonnes each year of post-use material from commercial, retail, industrial and agricultural markets across our Environment Agency Accredited Sites. The material is used to create new products such as street furniture, refuse sacks and building supplies.
Waste farm plastic like used bale wrap, fertiliser bags and crop film supplied by Birch Farm Plastics is ideal due to its inherent strength. BPI operates dedicated agricultural waste recycling facilities in Dumfries and Rhymney – South Wales.
Birch Farm Plastics have provided thousands of tonnes of waste farm plastics to our recycling plants and we look forward to working with the Birch family to further promote environmentally friendly disposal of farm plastics.
Not content to stop there, bpi agri is also taking steps to reduce the amount of waste its products create in the first place. Its Silotite PRO bale wrap, which is currently undergoing final field trials, offers all the performance of its world leading Silotite product but from a thinner film thickness. The net result is that less film by volume is required to wrap a bale and so less film requires recycling after use.
There’s no doubt about it. When it comes to helping farmers to minimise their environmental impact and their waste stream contribution, British Polythene Industries is definitely doing its part.

“We continually strive to provide an efficient and cost effective service to our customers and very grateful for the support of the farming community over the past 22 years” - Cheryl Birch

FARMING FAMILY AWARDED GOLD ENVIRONMENT AWARD

Cheryl Birch of Birch Farm Plastic Collection Ltd was awarded the Green Apple Environment Gold Award at a ceremony at the House of Commons.                   
We were incredibly proud to be awarded the Green Apple Environment Gold Award as recognition of our efforts to protect the environment and divert useable waste from landfills. We really appreciate the co-operation of all our valued farmers and strive to help them as much as we can to rid of their waste in an environmentally friendly manner.

BIRCH FARM PLASTIC COLLECTION LTD / SECOND LIFE PRODUCTS WALES LTD PRONOUNCED UK AGRICULTURAL DISTRIBUTOR OF ECOSHEET

We are extremely honoured to be a distributor of EcoSheet which is the recycled option to marine plywood. Being a farming family, we have found that EcoSheet has an extensive range of applications in the agricultural field and we have produced many products as illustrated below.

Delivery is available throughout the whole of the UK or simply contact your local agricultural merchant, namely Wynnstay, Clynderwen & Cardiganshire Farmers and Carmarthen & Pumsaint Farmers to collect the Sheets locally.

Eco Sheets	Garden Shed

Animal House	Dog Kennel

Feeder	Bag Holder

Mirror / Drawing Board	Mirror / Drawing Board

Bird House	Creep Feeder