Plastic is everywhere in agriculture now, but not easily recycled

Ron Harwood gardens in five gallon plastic buckets, many many plastic buckets at his farm in Harmony. Modern farming and gardening use a lot of plastic, not only in buckets, but in bale wrapping, row-crop mulching, greenhouse and high-tunnel covers, feed and fertilizer bags, produce bags and totes, seedling and planting trays and so forth.

Once used or worn out, these various plastic products made with different types of plastic (#1, #2, #3 etc.) have historically enjoyed a small but positive economic value as recyclables on the global market, but recent political and economic changes have reduced demand to the degree that now it costs money to dispose of these materials.

Harwood, a supporter of Dexter Dover Area Towns in Transition (DDATT) and dismayed at this turn of events, and at the increasing environmental problems inevitably to follow, wondered about the possibility of somehow collecting and remanufacturing all this plastic agriculture waste into some useful product instead of tossing it onto a landfill or, worse, having it wind up in the middle of our increasingly polluted oceans. Contacting the Advanced Structures and Composite Center (ASCC) at the University of Maine in Orono, he arranged for a small group of similarly concerned individuals from Skowhegan, Cambridge, Athens, Troy and Unity to tour that facility and learn more about the re-engineering of polymers.

Turns out, it’s not as easy as melting the waste down in a big pot and pouring it into molds of some desired product. ASCC has been experimenting for many years with combining various materials (for example wood fiber and plastics) to innovate manufacturing, but cleanliness of the materials is paramount, and the biggest problem with ag waste plastic is its dirtiness; no one has figured out a way to economically clean used plastics to the degree of consistency necessary for re-use.

Plastics are made mostly from oil. If the price of oil is low, making new plastic is cheaper than recycling old plastic because the price of oil does not represent the actual cost of dealing with the pollutants that follow its use.

Harwood and the group didn’t find a “silver bullet” to solve the local ag plastic waste problem just yet, but all those brains, churning with new concepts and possibilities, will no doubt come up with something to convert this problem into an asset for better farming and gardening.

DDATT’s mission is to help move our local communities into higher levels of self-control and independence, with reliable food production being a keystone. The more we share what we know, the stronger will be our community.

For more information on DDATT and future events, email info@ddatt.org to get on email news list, or call 277-4221 or 924-3836.