NORWICH – The Cornell Cooperative Extension of Chenango County has taken on new measures to promote plastics recycling among local farmers in an effort to limit landfill waste and dissuade illegal garbage burning.
Since January, the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Chenango County (CCE) has been more active than ever in promoting agriculture plastic recycling and working closely with farmers to develop a plastics recycling plan. The initiative is in conjunction with the New York State Recycling Agricultural Plastics Project (RAPP), which has touted ag plastic recycling since the state made the burning of ag plastics illegal in 2009.
According to CCE, a small dairy farm can generate as much as 1,000 pounds of plastic in a single season from items like bale wraps, silage and grain bags, bunker silo covers, bale netting, polytwine, feed and pellet bags, irrigation tubing, drip tape, maple tubing nursery pots and seedling trays, mulch films, tarps and various netting, among other things. Traditionally, such waste has been burned by farmers, sent to local landfills or left in the fields. But the RAPP program is geared toward a better alternative, explained CCE RAPP Coordinator Emily Anderson. Rather than being wasted or illegally burned, plastics collected through the program can be used to make waxes, machinery parts, and even construction materials including plastic lumber and sidewalks. In many instances, plastics can also undergo a process to extract the crude oil originally used to make it.
“Our main goal is to get farmers and people with agricultural plastics to recycle them,” said Anderson. Since its inception four years ago, RAPP has collected more than one million pounds of agricultural plastics statewide. The biggest challenge, added Anderson, is educating farmers about the process and the subsequent benefits. “It’s sometimes more difficult to collect it but sometime in the near future, it may be mandatory as the price of petroleum goes up.”
Moreover, the program spares farmers costly landfill tipping fees, Anderson pointed out. RAPP collects and bails agricultural plastics free of charge; however, bailers are owned by RAPP and shared among surrounding counties. “There needs to be between 1,000 and 1,300 pounds of plastic available to get a bailer,” she added. “We need at least that much for it to be cost effective to get one here.”
At present, Anderson is promoting the RAPP recycling initiative by working with local farmers to develop a best management practice for preparing ag plastics for proper recycling. “Not every plastic is the same,” she said. “And not every farm is going to have the same kind of plan.”
The RAPP program requests that plastics be kept as clean and dry as possible, free of any pebbles and clumps of soil and debris, rolled or folded into bundles, and separated from dissimilar types of plastics by color and type.
Local farmer Carol Cummings is one of the few in the county currently working closely with CCE to recycle plastic waste. “It’s a shame to put it in the landfill if it could be used for something else,” he said. “It’s just common sense if it could be used and it doesn’t cost anything to get rid of it. It’s too bad more people haven’t gotten involved.”
Cummings also said that recycling his plastics saved him a total $257 in landfill fees last year. “There’s a lot of plastic that’s being put in landfills or burned, and that’s not the answer,” he said, advising other farmers to take note. “Save your money, save the landfill and help the environment by recycling it.”