Recycling Agricultural Plastics: What Have We Learned?

Abstract

These are slides for a webinar organized by the National Recycling Coalition (NRC) and the Pennsylvania Recycling Markets Center (PARMC) as part of their Sustainable Materials Management Webinar Series, 2015-2016. The webinar is intended primarily for members of the recycling community—including recycling educators and organizers, solid waste and recycling businesses and agencies, plastics processors and manufacturers—who are considering becoming involved (or are currently involved) with collecting or processing agricultural plastics for recycling. After a quick introduction to the array of products called agricultural plastics, the presentation will go through the steps involved in processing these ‘difficult-to-recycle’ plastics, offering lessons learned from more than ten years experience promoting their recycling. Topics include: how to handle plastics on the farm to keep them in shape to recycle, equipment and approaches to compacting plastics for transport, criteria to use in selecting locations to consolidate and store baled plastic, cultivating and sharing information about processing markets, and applicability of models for extended producer responsibility (EPR). The webinar also unveiled groundwork being laid for a new agricultural plastics stakeholder organization, and the new website of the Recycling Agricultural Plastics Program: <recycleagriculturalplastics.net>.