Photo supplied by Cleanfarms

By Erika Rolling

Agriculture

Alberta grain bag and baler twine recycling pilot program extended to August 2023

Apr 30, 2022 | 10:00 AM

An additional $115,000 in funding from Alberta Agriculture and Forestry has been given to the ‘Alberta Ag Plastic: Recycle It!’ pilot program. This will allow an extension for another year and a half into August of 2023.

The pilot was set to expire in April 2022 with its initial three-year term of $1,000,000 in funding from Alberta’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Rural Economic Development.

The Agricultural Plastics Recycling Group and Cleanfarms work collaboratively for the ‘Alberta Ag Plastic: Recycle It!’. Cleanfarms works directly with collection sites and moves the plastics to market, while APRG operates the program itself while finding solutions for dealing with single-use plastics for agriculture.

So far the pilot program has collected more than 1,700 tonnes of grain bag plastic and 230 tonnes of baler twine to be recycled in Alberta.

Executive Director of the Alberta Plastics Recycling Association and committee member of the APRG, Tammy Schwass says there are over 32 collection sites and upwards of 100 satellite collection sites participating all over the province.

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There are four collection sites in northwestern Alberta with one each n Clairmont, Fairview, Cleardale and High Level. Click here to see the full map around Alberta.

“We have had very good participation with the grain bag recycling program and so part of the goal of the pilot was to collect enough data and information about the materials, collection and participating farmers to be able to roll that out into a permanent program.”

“Based on what we’ve done here in Alberta on the grain bag program and what has been done in other provinces… with grain bags, we do have quite a bit of data and information. However, we are still looking for more information around baler twine and that’s why we will be focusing on that area as part of the pilot extension.” Schwass explained.

The data generated through the three-year pilot on grain bag and bailer twine collection has producers and agricultural groups wanting a permanent way to manage plastics.

“They are looking for a way to manage their plastics responsibly and sustainably and so that means having recycling options for them available.”

“Manitoba and Saskatchewan both have a program for grain bag and bailer twine collection, and they’ve seen success with a program called Extended Producer Responsibility, where the manufacturers and first sellers of the plastics help pay for the recycling of that material and they are legally and financially responsible for that material at the end of its life,” Schwass says.

Schwass says the Alberta government is in support of moving towards EPR for single-use plastics household items right now.

“But they don’t have any legislation in place yet for agricultural plastics, so that is the piece that our group (APGR) and others have been working towards to enable a permanent program.”

Once grain bags are delivered to the collection sites they are taken to either Bashaw, AB or Hussar, AB for processing.

“Both of those facilities shred, wash and pelletize those grain bags and then those pellets are turned into other materials into the marketplace where some of them will be made into things like decking and plastic lumber,” she says.

Baler twine is shipped to facilities in the United States for recycling. Polypropylene plastic is made into pellets and sold back into the market for automotive parts and other items.

Producers wanting to learn more about recycling their agricultural single-use plastic can visit the Cleanfarms website for collection sites and how to properly prepare materials to drop them off.