How plastic baling twine becomes new agricultural products

Across Australia's wheat belt and cattle country, plastic baling twine is one of the most common items left behind after every hay and silage cut. A single baler can run through several kilometres of the strong, UV-stabilised cord in a season, and most of it has historically been burned, buried, or dumped in a corner paddock. Because the material is so tough, it does not break down in soil, and windrows of tangled twine are a familiar eyesore near shearing sheds and stockyards.

In regions around Toowoomba, Wagga Wagga, and the Murray River corridor, the volume of baling twine generated each harvest is significant, yet recovery infrastructure has lagged behind other agricultural plastics. New South Wales, Victoria, and Western Australia each have their own rules around farm waste, and growers are increasingly aware that what goes into a pit or a fire today can create compliance problems tomorrow. The push to recover twine is no longer just an environmental preference but a practical response to tightening local regulation.

The trouble is that baling twine looks simple but behaves stubbornly. It is usually made from high-density polyethylene, often with stabilisers and colourants added, and it is almost always contaminated with dust, hay fines, and moisture. Those characteristics make it unsuitable for kerbside recycling and have slowed investment in dedicated processing capacity. As a result, large amounts of a perfectly reusable resource have been lost to landfill.

A growing network of growers, recyclers, and corporate partners is now closing that loop. Programs supported by companies like Fresh Del Monte are demonstrating that the same string that lifts a hay bale off the paddock can return to the field as a different kind of product, reducing the need for virgin plastic and giving regional communities a new income stream in the process.

The scale of agricultural plastic waste

Australia produces more than 800,000 tonnes of agricultural plastic waste every year, and baling twine makes up a sizeable share of that figure. From the cotton farms of northern New South Wales to the dairy pastures of Gippsland, virtually every operation that handles hay, straw, or silage relies on it. The volume has grown in step with the shift toward mechanised, large-rectangle baling, which uses more twine per tonne than older small-square systems.

In places like Dubbo, Hamilton, and Launceston, local councils have begun counting farm plastic among their priority waste streams. Surveys of shearing teams and contractors routinely show that a single property can produce hundreds of kilograms of used twine across a cutting season. Multiply that by the tens of thousands of properties involved and the national tonnage becomes hard to ignore.

Why baling twine demands special handling

Baling twine is engineered to survive sun, rain, and the rough handling of a baler. That durability is exactly what makes it valuable as a recycled feedstock, and exactly what makes it difficult to process. The plastic is typically high-density polyethylene, often blended with linear low-density polyethylene to give it stretch, and the stabilisers that protect it from UV on the bale also protect it from breaking down in the environment.

The other challenge is contamination. Twine that comes off a bale is rarely clean. It is mixed with organic matter, soil, and oils, and it is usually wet. Recyclers must wash and dry it before it can be shredded and pelletised, and the wash water itself has to be managed. A useful parallel can be drawn from the way a water reuse system recovers and recycles processing water on a much larger scale; the same principle of cleaning and recirculating rather than discarding underpins twine recovery.

Once the cleaned flakes are melted and re-extruded, however, the resulting pellets are remarkably versatile. The table below shows some of the products now being made from recovered baling twine and the properties that make them suitable.

Collection networks across rural Australia

The first hurdle in any twine recovery scheme is getting the material off the farm and back to a processor. Drop-off points have sprung up at saleyards, machinery dealerships, and agricultural shows, and contractors who previously burned twine on-site are now paid a small per-kilogram fee to deliver it to a central point. In Queensland, the scheme aligns loosely with the state's existing Container Deposit Scheme infrastructure, which has already trained the public to return containers for a refund.

Western Australia's plastic ban has accelerated the conversation in that state, and growers in the wheat-growing shires around Merredin and Northam have been early adopters of on-property collection. In South Australia, regional councils have piloted mobile baler-style compactors that flatten and bale the twine at the collection site, cutting transport costs and making each truckload more efficient.

From farm gate to reprocessing plant

Once collected, the twine travels to a sorting and cleaning facility. Loose organic matter is shaken off in a trommel, then the twine passes through a series of wash baths, a drying tunnel, and a metal-detection stage before being fed into a granulator. The granules are then melted, filtered, and extruded into pellets that are bagged for downstream manufacturers. Quality control checks at each step keep contamination rates low and ensure the pellets meet the specifications of buyers.

Energy use at this stage is real, but it is offset by the avoidance of virgin resin production, which typically requires several times more energy per kilogram. The economics improve further when the same facility handles multiple farm plastics, such as silage wrap and feed bags, allowing shared processing lines and lower per-tonne costs.

New products grown from old twine

The pellets produced from recovered twine can be moulded or extruded into a wide range of items used back on the farm. Each application makes use of the material's natural strength, weather resistance, and low cost.

Products commonly manufactured from recycled baling twine include:

• Trellis clips and vine ties for horticulture
• Replacement fence droppers for sheep and cattle yards
• Heavy-duty nursery trays and seedling punnets
• Pallet blocks and crate feet for produce handling

These items replace products that would otherwise be made from virgin plastic, timber treated with preservatives, or short-life cardboard. For a typical mixed farm, the shift can reduce purchases of new plastic by several hundred kilograms a year, while also clearing the yards of tangled twine that has piled up over previous seasons.

Local standards and compliance

Australian growers operate under a patchwork of regulations that touch on plastic waste. The Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation sets voluntary targets that increasingly apply to agricultural inputs, while state-based container deposit schemes and plastic bans shape what is and is not accepted in local waste streams. In Western Australia, single-use plastic restrictions have spilled over into discussions about farm plastics more broadly, and in Victoria, the state's circular economy policy has highlighted baling twine as a priority material for recovery.

The relevant frameworks most often cited by participating growers are:

• National Plastics Plan targets for agricultural recovery
• State container deposit scheme rules for acceptable container types
• Local council waste bylaws governing burning and burial of farm plastic
• ACCC guidelines on truthful environmental claims made about recycled content

Programs that handle collection and processing on behalf of growers also work to align with these requirements, so that material leaving the farm meets the right standard at every step.

Growing the circular economy on the farm

Closing the loop on baling twine is not just about waste management. It is about reshaping how rural businesses think about the materials they use every day. The same logic that drives recovery programs in other sectors, from packaging to industrial material streams, is now reshaping how growers handle everyday farm consumables. Companies such as Fresh Del Monte CSR showcase how the broader produce industry is investing in circular systems that benefit growers, packers, and the land itself.

For individual producers, the change can start small. Checking the next cutting's twine for signs of wear, setting aside a dedicated drum for used string, and asking the local saleyard whether it hosts a collection point are all practical first moves. A regional drop-off is often no further away than the nearest contractor's yard, and the cumulative effect of thousands of growers taking those small steps is what turns a stubborn waste problem into a working resource.

The most direct way to take part is to contact your local agricultural collection scheme and request a used-twine pickup or drop-off location before the next hay cut. Adding the date to the shearing shed calendar turns intention into habit and gives the rest of the season a clear, measurable starting point.