A WEST Clare company which recycles 300 tonnes of farm plastic every year – which is then converted into fencing posts – is planning to double its production levels in 2023.
IFF Plastics is a family-run recycling company in Cree offers a local solution to recycling farm plastics such as fertiliser bags and bale wrap. Farmers from across the Midwest, along with large hardware businesses and co-ops, dispose of their plastics at the West Clare facility where it is then recycled into round and square plastic fencing post.
Sharon Barrington runs the business alongside her brother Liam and dad Pat. The family business has been in operation for three decades, a trailblazer in the recycling industry in the west of Ireland. Previously, they worked as a plastic collection business before evolving into making raw material called pellet, until finally they decided to recycle the material into their own product. It’s a journey which now sees the waste material going full circle, a fully sustainable journey which begins and ends in the fields of County Clare.
Sharon tells The Clare Echo, “The price market [for raw plastic material] was very volatile so when my business started, we were trying to develop something we could do using the material we had. We looked at the strengths of the material and found that fencing posts would be ideal because you were taking from the farming sector and selling back to the farming sector again. We learnt a lot from making pellet, you’re better off making a product out of it so we’re gone full circle now. We’re recycling it, making it into a product and selling it back to the Irish market again”.
Not only that, much of the machinery at the Cree facility is repurposed and all water used in production is harvested rainwater. “The material comes in one side and it’s shredded, washed and dried” before it’s used to create fencing posts.
“Recycling is a big thing,” notes Sharon. “Thirty years is the length of time we’ve been in this business and you’d like to be able to repurpose or recycle anything you can so a lot of machinery we have is repurposed. There’s always something that’s been made before that you can repurpose for the job you need it to do. Recycling is very important and there needs to be more help there for recycling in Ireland”.
The Barrington family sell their posts back to the farming industry from where they source their material, while Sharon admits they see potential in the market for growth. “We’re still very small but we recycle about 300 tonne a year and we aim to double that next year.
There are loads of markets there, and we are exploring the export market as well. A lot of our customers are in the farming sector but you’d also have commercial and industrial a so there’s a lot of uses for it. Next year we’d be hoping to get into Greenways and walkways.” There are also residential uses for the posts other than fencing, such as letterbox posts.
Sharon credits Clare LEO for assisting them in developing their company in recent years, particularly praising the Green for Micro initiative which saw a consultant advise them on implementing a more efficient production system whereby they have begun to source cleaner materials to work with.
“Clare LEO have been very helpful with the Green for Micro, I got involved with their Women In Business programme and I’ve done a few courses with them as well such as business management,” adds Sharon, who has bene involved with the business since she was 17. We’re very proud of what we’ve created. We’re the only ones in Ireland who are recycling material and bringing it to product stage, we’re the only ones who can do a full circle – small and all as we are, but we’ll be growing.”
To contact IFF Plastics, call 065 905 0773 or visit iff.ie.
