Plastics Recycling Update Magazine: Harvesting plastics from the agricultural sector

Harvesting plastics from the agricultural sector

By Editorial Staff, Plastics Recycling Update

August 26, 2015

Recovering mulch film, pesticide containers, drainage piping and much more was the focus of the Agricultural Plastics Recycling Conference (APRC 2015), held last week in San Diego.

Presentations on a plethora of aspects of the agricultural plastics recycling industry were offered at APRC 2015, the second year the conference was held.

A presentation from Rami Margalit of Netafim, a large producer of polyethylene drip irrigation pipe, addressed one of the largest issues facing ag plastics recycling: high contamination.

Margalit's firm had experience with the use of post-consumer plastics in making thin-wall pipe and found high levels of holes in the finished product, caused by contaminants in the recycled resin pellets. Following that experience, Margalit developed a way to test pellet loads for contamination. The system uses a lab extruder in a filter test, with pellets being put through 80/20 filters. The filters are then examined to determine contamination levels. The firm now tests every load and is encouraging large recycling suppliers to install their own filter-test systems.

In another presentation, Ron Perkins, executive director of the Ag Container Recycling Council (ACRC), offered an update on his 23-year-old nonprofit volunteer alliance of 37 pesticide producers and distributors that partner to recover one-way HDPE pesticides containers in 43 states. The plastics from triple-rinsed or pressure-washed containers are ground at collection sites and then shipped to one of six ACRC-approved end-use markets in the U.S., primarily corrugated pipe producers. ACRC has recovered 160 million pounds over the past 23 years.

Finally, Gene Jones, the head of the regional solid waste and recycling group SWIX offered a look at ag plastics recovery in Florida. According to Jones, farmers in the Sunshine State annually produce 40,000 tons of mulch film and drip pipe or tape and the state is struggling with how to handle this volume. One county offered as an example has more than 50,000 tons sitting in three monofills.

Jones highlighted one firm, FieldClean of Florida, which has developed a technology to pick up and clean film in the agricultural field, perhaps offering a way to recover some of Florida's ag film volumes.

Jones, who also was the conference planner, will present a full international assessment of ag plastics recovery as a speaker at Plastics Recycling 2016, scheduled for February 1-3 in New Orleans.

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