Clean Farms
Empty pesticide and fertilizer jugs destined for recycling in Clean Farms jug collection program.
To celebrate its 10th Anniversary, the agricultural recycling company Cleanfarms is looking at what’s next?
Over a decade of program operations, Cleanfarms has recovered 51,600 tonnes of plastic and other non-organic ag-waste from Canada’s agricultural sector for recycling or proper disposal.
These materials consist of empty agricultural plastic jugs and containers; used grain bags; empty seed, pesticide and fertilizer bags; and old, unwanted pesticides and livestock/equine medications.
“We recognize that we have a moral obligation to farmers and other Canadians to leave our world as good or better environmentally then when we began,” says General Manager Barry Friesen, as Cleanfarms marks its 10th anniversary in 2020 with the unveiling of an anniversary logo.
Friesen admits that with an estimated 40,000 tonnes of plastic generated in the agricultural sector annually, recovering it with a zero-waste mindset is a tall order, but promises Cleanfarms is “just getting started”.
This spring, Cleanfarms gets underway with a first-of-its-kind national scale research project that will provide critical information to help agricultural plastic producers and Canadian farmers boost their ability to recycle agricultural plastic waste.
Funded by the federal Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Canada, the study will quantify the types and volumes of on-farm plastic wastes and secondly, identify facilities that can manage or recycle these waste streams.
“Through this, we plan to transition agriculture as a full participant in the zero-waste circular economy. That’s one of the ways we hope to contribute to a better environment,” Friesen says.
Cleanfarms’ mandate is to support agriculture to be both responsible and sustainable in all operations, and to achieve the ultimate goal of zero waste.
