Agricultural Plastic Waste Mapping Using GIS. a Case Study in Italy T ⁎ Ileana Blanco, Rosa Viviana Loisi, Carmela Sica, Evelia Schettini , Giuliano Vox
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Resources, Conservation & Recycling 137 (2018) 229–242 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Resources, Conservation & Recycling journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/resconrec Full length article Agricultural plastic waste mapping using GIS. A case study in Italy T ⁎ Ileana Blanco, Rosa Viviana Loisi, Carmela Sica, Evelia Schettini , Giuliano Vox University of Bari – Department of Agricultural and Environmental Science (DISAAT), via Amendola 165/A, 70126, Bari, Italy ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Keywords: Plastic materials used in agriculture mostly derive from synthetic petro-chemical polymers. They require at the GIS end of their lifetime a suitable waste management system for the collection and treatment. A research was Land use management carried out in order to define a GIS methodology for mapping the agricultural plastic waste on the land. The use Agricultural practices in agriculture of plastics in Barletta-Andria-Trani Province – Apulia Region – was investigated by applying Waste management orthophotos analysis and remote sensing survey. Besides purposed Plastic Waste Indexes were created to release Plastic films and nets land use to waste generation. The data were organized in a specific geo-database. The analysis showed that the Waste disposal − agricultural plastic waste yearly produced from covering films was 627 kg ha 1, from the anti-hail nets was − − − 159 kg ha 1, from nets for crop protection was 192 kg ha 1, from shading nets was 131 kg ha 1, from irrigation − pipes was 104 kg ha 1. Through GIS, the areas with high density of plastic wastes were pointed out and the suitable location of collection centres was defined. The produced maps and the GIS database can be always updatable tools, useful for monitoring and optimizing the collection of agricultural plastic waste from the farms and their transport to the recycling companies. 1. Introduction matrix for eco-composite materials reinforced with cellulosic materials and coupling agents. APW must be treated before recycling to make it The use of plastics in agriculture represents about 2% of the over clean of soil, organic matter and agrochemicals. The valorisation of 265 million tons of plastics produced per annum worldwide; this use is APW would therefore lead to the reduction of the quantity of plastics globally growing due to an ever more diffusion of intensive and semi- produced with non-renewable petrochemicals and prevent waste pro- intensive agricultural practices (Hemphill, 1993; Picuno, 2014; duction (Picuno et al., 2011, 2012b; Picuno, 2014; Sica et al., 2015a; Briassoulis et al., 2013). Plastic is used mainly to produce irrigation González-Sánchez et al., 2014). Some APW fractions cannot be re- pipes, covering materials for greenhouse and orchard, containers. cycled, thus the energy recovery can be a way of using the non-re- Agricultural plastics are mostly derived from synthetic petro-chemical cyclable plastic waste, exploiting its high heating value, as alternative polymers, thus they need a correct collection, disposal of and recycling option to the disposal in the landfills (Hemphill, 1993; Scarascia process at the end of their lifetime. These plastics can be dirty of soil Mugnozza et al., 2011). and organic matter and can be contaminated with pesticides and fer- The inefficiency of the few systems of APW management existing in tilizers, thus they are turning into a growing environmental issue, the European countries, the little input/output data on the use of which requires efficient disposal solutions with high costs for the plastics in agriculture hamper a correct APW collection, cleaning, growers. sorting and processing (Martínez Urreaga et al., 2015; Briassoulis et al., Agricultural plastic waste (APW) is often improperly disposed of 2013). There is a lack of a standardization methodology for identifying through open field burning, abandonment in the fields or along wa- the types, the quantities, the generation sites and the flows of APW in tercourses, burial in the soil, and disposal in the landfills. An in- an agricultural area in order to create a geo-referenced database useful appropriate disposal of APW produces environmental and economic to overcome the problem of APW management. In Europe, the co- problems, such as agro-ecosystem degradation, soil and water con- operation between governments and academic researchers within the tamination, release of harmful substances and air pollutants, food projects AgroChePack (2016) and AWARD (2016) has led to the de- contamination (Briassoulis et al., 2013; Sica et al., 2015b). APW can be, velopment of draft of different APW management plans. The knowledge instead, suitable for an economically feasible mechanical recycling. It on how much waste are present in an agricultural area and the iden- could be used even for producing other plastic materials, or used as tification of the areas with the greatest APW concentration in this ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (I. Blanco), [email protected] (R.V. Loisi), [email protected] (C. Sica), [email protected] (E. Schettini), [email protected] (G. Vox). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2018.06.008 Received 21 February 2018; Received in revised form 18 April 2018; Accepted 6 June 2018 Available online 20 June 2018 0921-3449/ © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. I. Blanco et al. Resources, Conservation & Recycling 137 (2018) 229–242 Fig. 1. The study area where the GIS modelling was applied. geographical area could make possible the development of a sustainable social and economic factors. APW management plan. The aim of this paper is to quantify the APW on the land related to The APW generation has been analysed, in the European context, each crop type (CT) and plastic application (PA) in a well-defined rural but on the basis of statistical data and at the national level, making area by using GIS and defining a specifically purposed set of plastic difficult the localisation of the areas characterised by intense APW waste indexes (PWIs). The present study focuses on the implementation production, so far. When no primary data were available, estimated of a planning procedure aimed to provide a complete geo-referenced areas of protected cultivations were used for calculating quantities of information on the quantities and typologies of APW produced in the yearly-generated APW, by applying conversion factors defined on an territory of the Barletta-Andria-Trani Province (BAT), in Apulia Region, agricultural film producer experience (Briassoulis et al., 2013). A de- South Italy. The GIS database, easily manageable, will constitute a tailed geographical distribution of main APW quantities was defined on useful tool for the Authorities and the Stakeholders for monitoring the the Greek and Italian territories where the geographic distribution of APW production and properly manage the APW flows. This tool can crops was inferred from statistical sources and from data provided by promote sustainable solutions in landscape planning within the wider the Ministry of Agriculture (Hiskakis et al., 2008; Scarascia Mugnozza issue of the land conservation (Picuno et al., 2011; Díaz-Palacios- et al., 2008). Sisternes et al., 2014; Vox et al., 2016, 2017; Loisi et al., 2017). Local Geographical Information Systems (GIS) can be used to localize the authorities could update the GIS database by exploiting the updates of generation sites of waste on the land. The applicability of GIS depends regional land use databases shared by the regional sectors involved in on the availability of specific database, the geo-referenced database. territorial governance or by using remote sensing techniques for de- Through GIS a great amount of data can be efficiently stored, geo-re- tecting the land use changes (Lanorte et al., 2017; Scarascia Mugnozza ferenced, retrieved, analysed, and displayed, in relation to user-defined et al., 2016). specifications (Suresh and Sivasankar, 2014; Shamshiry et al., 2011; Onunkwo et al., 2012). It allows the selection of disposal sites con- sidering waste generation site and quantity, infrastructures, land use, 230 I. Blanco et al. Resources, Conservation & Recycling 137 (2018) 229–242 Fig. 2. Vineyards covered above and laterally with coloured LDPE films. 1.1. The use of plastic in agriculture humidity (Picuno, 2014; Schettini and Vox, 2012; Scarascia Mugnozza et al., 2011). Their frequent replacement generates large amounts of Plastic films can be employed in agriculture for greenhouse, tunnel, post-consumer materials (Al-Maaded et al., 2012; Briassoulis et al., orchard and silage covering, soil mulching, solarization and direct 2012, 2013, 2014; Hemphill, 1993). The quantity of APW can be lim- covering. Covering plastic films are used to modify the microclimate ited by using innovative anti UV additives and thicker plastic materials inside the protected volume. Plastic nets can be used for crop shading for a higher durability (Picuno, 2014; Schettini et al., 2014; Stefani and protection and for harvesting operations. Moreover, irrigation and et al., 2014; Espí et al., 2007; Stefani et al., 2011; Schettini and Vox, drainage pipes, packaging containers and sacks, pots, trays and seedling 2012). containers, strings and ropes can be made from plastics (Picuno, 2014; APW is mostly made of geographically concentrated and seasonally Vox et al., 2010; Markarian, 2005). dependent materials (Simboli et al., 2015). APW generate a strong The benefits of plastic materials are: light weight and good me- impact in areas where protected horticultural