Pictured is Steve Best, DeRuyter dairy farmer who offered his farm as a demonstration site for recovering ag plastics. The load will eventually be delivered to Madison County’s Landfill for baling.
Agricultural Engineering Club members lay out recovered plastic to dry. Once dry, they flipped each sheet to dry again. Then the sheets were cut into strips and folded. The spread-out plastic covered over an acre of ground.
Reece Treen and Donnivan Johnson help load plastic stacks into Steve Best’s front-end loader.
Kate Burdick folds an ag plastic strip destined for the Buyea Road Landfill.
Pictured from left Ag Engineering students Kate Burdick, Donnivan Johnson, Matt Hungerford, Cody Brundage, Ben Dey, Reece Treen take a break from untangling and cutting strips of ag plastic.
(Morrisville, NY – Oct. 21, 2013) On Thursday, Oct. 10 11 students from Morrisville State College’s Agricultural Engineering Club helped bring agricultural plastic recycling to DeBest Farm, DeRuyter, owned by Steve Best. It was the students’ way of contributing to an ongoing Madison County project, but also demonstrated that ag plastics can be recovered, put to better use, and kept out of landfills.
The students’ work helps promote “Recycling Agricultural Plastics Project,” a program launched by Madison County Department of Solid Waste last January. Ever since, farmers have responded by delivering more baleage plastic wrap, bunk silo film, greenhouse covers and other plastic products to all of the transfer stations and the main landfill on Buyea Road. To make the project more attractive to farmers, tipping fees have been waived. In the end, these plastic products are being converted to diesel fuel.
But more can be done. Once a critical mass of ag and rigid plastics is regularly collected, this project will become self-sustaining. With diesel fuel as the “end product,” it can be used internally at the landfill or help pay for “milk runs” to pick up ag plastics at-the-farm. These are just two examples in an exhaustive list of possibilities.
According to James Zecca, Director of the Dept. of Solid Waste, “Madison County is striving to find a solution to effectively recycle agricultural and rigid plastic.” These efforts are arousing the interest of neighboring counties that have expressed interested in learning more about this new process and pledging to support Madison County’s efforts.
This program was organized by Cornell Cooperative Extension of Madison County. We’d like to thank our host Steve Best who offered his pile of ag plastic, the land, and his tractor to help with the recovery. We’d also like to thank Fred Bach, Agricultural Engineering Club Advisor, and Dan Graves, Store Manager at the Madison TSC Store for donating gloves for the students.
To find out more about Ag Plastic Recycling, contact Madison County Department of Solid Waste at (315) 361-8409 or Karen Baase at Cornell Cooperative Extension of Madison County at (315) 684-3001.