WILLMAR - They're a familiar sight on most farms: bale wraps, silage and forage bags, bunker wraps, films for protecting greenhouses and hoophouses - all made of plastic.
Although the use of agricultural plastic has been on the rise for the past decade, farmers have had few options for disposing of it other than burning it or bringing it to a landfill.
That's about to change with the introduction of a regional service that will collect the plastic and recycle it.
Revolution Plastics, an Arkansas company, is expanding in Minnesota and looking for customers. There's no charge to join; all that's required is permission to place a dumpster at participating farms for collecting and picking up agricultural plastic.
The material that's collected is shipped to Arkansas where it's recycled into plastic bags and plastic resin.
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Kandiyohi County's recycling program isn't directly involved in the initiative, but local farmers are being encouraged to sign up.
"It's just another way for us to reduce what's going into the landfill," said Jay Baker, Kandiyohi County recycling and household hazardous waste coordinator. "If you can recycle it, it's a lot better."
Baker said there's a clear need for more environmentally friendly options for disposing of agricultural plastic, a material that has become widespread.
"If you drive around the countryside, you can see there's quite a bit of it out there," he said. "Pretty much all farmers use it."
In neighboring Wisconsin, an estimated 55 million pounds of low-density polyethylene plastic is sold each year for agricultural use. A study conducted two years ago found that two-thirds of Wisconsin farmers disposed of their ag plastic at landfills. The same study also found that the majority of farmers were willing to haul the plastic to a collection site for recycling, as long as it was not too expensive to do so.
The issue has been on the radar screen of the Recycling Association of Minnesota as well. This fall the association promoted the concept at the Minnesota Farmers Union convention and the state dairy conference and expo.
A number of Minnesota counties are getting on board with the collection of ag plastic - and boat plastic too - for recycling. Revolution Plastics, which is already active in Wisconsin, has been gradually expanding its service across Minnesota and is currently looking for participating farm sites within an 80-mile radius of Sauk Centre. Between 200 and 300 farms are needed to sign up. Small farms can share a container.
Farmers are asked to notify Revolution Plastics before the end of February if they want to participate. Sign-up is available on the company's website, www.revolutionplastics.com , or by calling 844-490-7873.
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As Kandiyohi County works toward reducing waste and reducing volume at the landfill, it's important to think outside the box and try ventures with new partners, Baker said.
"This is really the first attempt in this area to do something with agricultural plastic," he said. "We just want to make it work."
