Grain bag recycling has been and continues to be very busy! Producers continue to participate in the program and our volume of plastic shipped has continued to grow as we take on more privately operated collection sites. This goes to show that producers all across the province want to do the right thing and recycle their grain bags. Twine collection has also increased over the last year and we have started to accept small amounts of net wrap at some of our sites. We hope to increase our efforts for collecting twine and net wrap this coming winter and offer more options to producers to deal with these types of plastics.
With the passing of the Agricultural Packaging Product Waste Stewardship regulations in 2016 there will be an industry stewardship program starting in January 2018 for grain bag plastic. This means that the grain bag portion of our pilot program will be wrapping up as industry takes the lead on this new recycling stewardship program.
Ag Plastics Recycling
Travis Quirk
Ag Plastics Recycling Program Coordinator
The 2016 Ag plastic program year was busy and the 2017 Program year (since April 1st) hasn’t slowed down! Between April 1st2016 to March 31st 2017 we shipped 970,508kg (about 2.14 million pounds) of grain bag plastic to recyclers! That tops our collection efforts for the most plastic collected and shipped during our pilot program!
The current year is on track to exceed those numbers! Since April 1st2017 we have shipped 775,896 kg (about 1.71 million pounds) and we are still regularly shipping plastic from our sites to recyclers all over the world! The raw rolled plastic gets shipped via truck or shipping container to recyclers in Europe, Asia and into the US. Most commonly the plastic is recycled into a raw plastic pellet then into a black household trash bin liner.
We welcomed 3 new collection sites to the program in the last few months Davidson, Canora and Speers –and they are all off to a very strong start! Participation in the program is continuing to increase as Saskatchewan agricultural producers step up and get involved with the recycling program! Check out our website (www.simplyag.ca) for the most current list of sites and their contact information.
This year we have expanded the program to include on farm pick up of large stockpiles of rolled grain bags. This works well for stockpiles of 100+ grain bags in a single location. Producers with large stockpiles of material should contact the Simply Ag Solutions office and make arrangements to get the plastic picked up. We have successfully picked up multiple loads of rolled grain bags direct from farm and is a good option for large farm operations.
Simply Ag Solutions will be running a promotion this coming fall to encourage producers that have stockpiles of rolled grain bags to get them into our sites. We want to encourage everyone to get those stockpiles of plastic cleaned up! We are still working on the details of this promotion so check out our website and Facebook page or call our office to get the full details as they come available.
At the end of December 2017 we will be wrapping up the grain bag portion of the pilot program as the province wide industry stewardship program is to start on January 1st 2018. We have built a successful program with the participation of numerous producers and collection sites across the province and we hope that with the implementation of the province wide stewardship program it will continue to expand and provide more options for responsibly and sustainably disposing of grain bags.
