{"id":40638,"date":"2013-01-10T09:16:02","date_gmt":"2013-01-10T14:16:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=40638"},"modified":"2013-01-10T09:36:12","modified_gmt":"2013-01-10T14:36:12","slug":"madison-county-launches-agricultural-plastics-recycling-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=40638","title":{"rendered":"Madison County Launches Agricultural Plastics Recycling Program"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Chris<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Chris Brown, an employee of ABC Farms Inc. explained how the large bale wrap and silage covers are prepared for recycling during the Jan. 4 press conference held at ABC Farms in Canastota.<\/em><\/p>\n

(Canastota, NY \u2013 Jan. 8, 2013) ABC Farm of Canastota hosted the official launch of the Madison County Ag Plastics Recycling Program on Friday Jan. 4. The program provides a way for farmers to recycle agricultural plastics such as large bale wrap and silage covers.<\/p>\n

Agricultural plastics can be dropped off at the transfer stations in Cazenovia, Sullivan, Hamilton and the main landfill in the town of Lincoln.<\/p>\n

The launch was held at ABC farm to show an example of one of the main point sources for agricultural plastics in Madison County –\u00a0the working farm.\u00a0\u00a0 From there participants traveled to the main landfill to view the baling and shipping process now in use.<\/p>\n

Previously, farmers were either dumping or burning the waste plastic.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe use 2000 pounds of plastic per year that we\u2019ve been taking it to the landfill,\u201d said Rick Carrier, owner of ABC Farm.<\/p>\n

James Zecca, Director of the Department of Solid Waste & Sanitation,\u00a0explained the importance of the program.<\/p>\n

\u201cAg plastic is some of the most difficult material to recycle,” said Zecca. \u201cWe have been working with JBI, Inc. of Niagara Falls who has a proprietary process that turns waste plastic into clean diesel fuel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Currently, waste Ag plastic is shipped to Niagara Falls where it is processed into diesel fuel.\u00a0 JBI Inc. has discovered a way to \u201ccrack the code\u201d \u2013 turn plastic back into diesel fuel.\u00a0 Their plant in Niagara Falls is an innovative North American fuel company that transforms unsorted, unwashed waste plastic into ultra-clean, ultra-low sulphur fuel without the need for refinement.<\/p>\n

JBI Inc.\u2019s patent pending Plastic2Oil (P2O) process is a commercially viable, proprietary process designed to provide immediate economic benefit for industry, communities and government organizations with waste plastic recycling challenges.<\/p>\n

Diversion of items that don\u2019t biodegrade and take up space in the landfill is a concept that has long been a priority for the Madison County Department of Solid Waste under Director Zecca\u2019s leadership.<\/p>\n

Madison County leadership would like to convince JBI, Inc. to set up a site at the Agriculture Renewal Energy – ARE park sited at the Madison County landfill. Ultimately, Madison County could become the Ag Plastics collection point for the entire CNY region.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis launch represents the first step in a long term plan that will not only turn plastic into clean diesel, but could also provide job creation through economic development,\u201d said Kipp Hicks, Director of Madison County\u2019s Industrial Development Agency.<\/p>\n

Representatives from agencies concerned with agriculture and the environment weighed in about the importance of the program. Karen Baase, Ag Educator from Cornell Cooperative Extension of Madison County estimated that the Central New York region would have approximately 630 tons of Ag plastic to recycle annually, with 80 tons in Madison County alone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat estimate is only for working farms,\u201d said Baase. \u201cAdding horticultural waste plastic could feasibly double that estimate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lois Leviton, Program Leader of Cornell University\u2019s Recycling Agricultural Plastics Projects shared about another use of Ag plastics involving a company in Auburn making plastic ply-board. This could add another potential market to recycle Ag plastic waste materials.<\/p>\n

\u201cDiversification of markets is key for a truly successful initiative,\u201d noted Zecca. \u201cYou don\u2019t want to have all your eggs in one basket. If one market dries up, you want to have a back-up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Madison County has been collecting Ag Plastics since Dec. 6, 2012 with great success.\u00a0 Now with the project officially launched, the Department of Solid Waste wants to encourage all farmers, gardeners and other generators of Ag plastic materials to drop them off at transfer stations in Cazenovia, Sullivan, Hamilton and the main landfill site in the town of Lincoln.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chris Brown, an employee of ABC Farms Inc. explained how the large bale wrap and silage covers are prepared for recycling during the Jan. 4 press conference held at ABC Farms in Canastota. (Canastota, NY \u2013 Jan. 8, 2013) ABC Farm of Canastota hosted the official launch of the Madison County Ag Plastics Recycling Program […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[23679,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-agfarming","category-top-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43meu-azs","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40638\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}