The Northern Ontario Farm Innovation Alliance and the Northern Caucus of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture are collaborating on a three-year pilot to improve the management of used agricultural plastic.
This pilot aims to divert over 500 tons of plastic from current waste management streams and instead recycle or recover into usable products, including fuel, electricity and composite board. This pilot will also provide data on conversion efficiencies and costs as well as best management practices.
To participate in the pilot, farmers can purchase a compactor for use on-farm.
Used agricultural plastic will be collected and aggregated into ~900-pound bales, which will then be stored on-farm until an annual or semi-annual collection event. The plan is to annually, or however often it ends up being necessary, have a collection event where it's arranged to collect the bales with trucks and deliver them to the recycling company. So the farmer would just keep the bales on the farm until there are enough to be collected.
The bales will then be shipped to an end-user, who will recover or recycle the plastic. The farmer is responsible for making a good bale, with support and resources provided through the pilot, and once that bale has been dropped off, all additional costs and logistics are covered.
