Agricultural plastic waste mapping using GIS. A case study in Italy

Plastic materials used in agriculture mostly derive from synthetic petro-chemical polymers. They require at the end of their lifetime a suitable waste management system for the collection and treatment. A research was carried out in order to define a GIS methodology for mapping the agricultural plastic waste on the land. The use in agriculture of plastics in Barletta-Andria-Trani Province – Apulia Region – was investigated by applying orthophotos analysis and remote sensing survey. Besides purposed Plastic Waste Indexes were created to release land use to waste generation. The data were organized in a specific geo-database. The analysis showed that the 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.