Councilor Jeff Smith thinks it's worth finding out.

"Who knows what doors are going to open? You've only got to put a little wedge in slightly in one door and then it could open a myriad of doors."

The Glen Innes Severn councilor moved last week to investigate developing a recycling service for what he says is an enormous stock of wasted plastic wrap left over from bales of hay farmers purchase to feed their stock.

At the moment given prevailing drought conditions farmers need to buy more feed than usual, which means waste keeps piling up.

And at the moment, he said, farmers have no constructive option for disposal. Their choices: either burying it or illegally burning it.

"You can see it laying around; you go into farmers' places you can see it laying around everywhere."

Council last month declared a climate emergency and to hold a meeting with an eye to developing a plan for mitigating the costs of globally higher average temperatures to the local government area.

Councilor Smith said helping reduce the shire's plastic waste would be an effective practical measure the council could implement to the benefit of farmers, the community, the environment and council itself.

His motion to order council staff to investigate the idea was approved unanimously at last week's council meeting.

He told the Examiner in an interview that he was happy with the attitude of other councilors.

"If it can get used for a single purpose and then get re-purposed for something else - does it get any better than that? No."

Councilor Andrew Parsons, who described the idea as the "tip of the iceberg" and said the idea could help reduce landfill.

A number of local governments including the Wangarrata shire council already offer farmers free plastic recycling for a range of plastic materials through company Plastic Forests.

Jeff Smith said he has been considering the idea for a while, but was approached by landholders recently, which convinced him to bring the idea to the council meeting.

He said he's waiting on the report from council staff before definitively saying the plan would be a success.

The Glen Innes dump have started providing recycling services just this year.

Councilor Smith said an average Australian farm produces half a tonne of plastic waste per year, with just 5.2 per cent of it ever being recycled.

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