LOVELOCK - County officials recently approved a plan that could save space at the landfill and reduce air pollution at no cost to Pershing County.
Starting this summer, farmers can recycle their empty pesticide bottles instead of burning or dumping them.
Environmental scientist Jon Carpenter of the Nevada Dept. of Agriculture told county commissioners he expects enough support in the local farm community for the project to be viable in Pershing County.
"I met with producers in January and there is renewed interest in the program," he said.
"There is no charge essentially to anybody if it works properly and I'm convinced it's going to work properly this time."
Winnemucca Farms, Ron's Seed and Supply and Simplot in Orovada are participating collection sites in Humboldt County and a fenced collection will be installed at the Pershing County landfill providing a controlled environment for container inspections. Stained bottles are accepted but no chemical residue, lids or labels are allowed.
Certified ground and aerial pesticide applicators are required by law to triple rinse their containers before burning or dumping them at the county landfill and the recycling plan would require the same procedure. Interstate Ag Plastics (IAP) out of California will pick up containers at state collection sites in Lovelock, Winnemucca and Orovada on Sept. 24.
IAP is contracted by the Ag Container Recycling Council, a consortium of chemical companies including Monsanto, DuPont, Pfizer, BASF and others.
An ACRC brochure states the nonprofit group "facilitates the collection and recycling of one-way rigid HDPE plastic agricultural crop protection, animal health, specialty pest control, micro-nutrient/fertilizer and/or adjuvant product containers."
After discussing the plan with Carpenter, county landfill operator Mitch Nielsen said the plan is a good idea and fits in with his other recycling plans to save space at the landfill.
When the local container collection site is ready, Carpenter said he will notify those on his mailing list of certified pesticide applicators. After meeting with commissioners, he explained why he believes growers will support the recycling option.
"A lot of farmers have expressed interest and that's the reason we resurrected the program," Carpenter said. "The alternatives are land filling, burning or recycling. Burning is becoming less of an option because of state and local regulations even though the federal government says it is permitted on the pesticide label. Land filling comes with its own problems with less space at the landfills so the recycling option is becoming more accepted and used."
Household plastic containers cannot be included in the pesticide container recycling stream, he said. Unlike other plastics, pesticide containers are recycled into new pesticide containers, parking bumpers, fence posts and other non-food items.
"If it flies here and in Winnemucca, we'll expand the recycling program into Fallon, Eureka and other areas," Carpenter said. "The aerial agriculture pilot guys are leading this thing and the mosquito district in Humboldt County is interested. Pesticide dealerships have customers who want to know what to do with these containers. People want to recycle this stuff. I'm convinced we'll have a successful pilot program."
After discussing the plan with Carpenter, county landfill operator Mitch Nielsen said the project is a good idea and fits with his other recycling goals to conserve landfill space. He's willing to inspect incoming bags of containers and will reject contaminated bottles.
University of Nevada Cooperative Extension educator Steve Foster works with Pershing County growers and believes many of them would participate in the recycling program.
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