Agricultural plastic is not being collected from farmers throughout the country , although they pay a special recycling fee for each kilo of plastic, according to mbl.is. The fee was set up in 2004 to reduce the amount of plastic going to municipal waste disposal or incineration on farms and to increase the proportion of plastic that is reclaimed.
Farmers receive varying degrees of service depending on where they live, and in some cases plastic has not been collected since the fee was imposed.
A farmer in West Iceland told mbl.is that farmers have difficulty getting rid of the plastic, and in many places it is burnt or sent to waste disposal. He said farmers are not displeased with the fee, but would much rather see it go into recycling like it is supposed to do.
Ólafur Kjartansson, Manager of the Icelandic Recycling Fund, told the Icelandic State Broadcasting Service that the set-up for agricultural plastic is relatively new, but he had heard of problems in remote places. He said, however, that farmers could themselves enter into an agreement with the Fund to collect plastic, take it to be recycled or burnt, and receive payment in the same way as contractors do.
