Wanted: farm chemical canisters sitting covered in cobwebs at the back of the machine shed.
CropLife has teamed up with the Canadian Association of Agri-Retailers, the Agriculture Council of Saskatchewan and the governments of Canada and Saskatchewan to create the Saskatchewan obsolete pesticide collection campaign.
“Our goal is to get everything out of there,” said Russell Hurst, manager of stewardship development for CropLife Canada.
The program will accept chemical containers at 46 agri-retailers around the province Oct. 23-25.
“It’s a great opportunity to allow (producers) to be good environmental stewards of the land,” Hurst said.
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All products will be dispatched to a certified rendering facility at Swan Hills, Alta., for incineration at high temperatures.
The collection campaign is a free service, with farmers expected to deliver the products to the sites. Herbicide and fungicide containers should be capped and not leaking.
Seed treatments and adjuvants are not accepted. Empty containers for those products are managed through container recycling programs already in place in the province.
Hurst said producer support has been good for the Saskatchewan program, which collected 150,000 kilograms of products in glass jars, metal containers and bags from 1999 to 2001.
Similar programs will take place in Alberta and Manitoba in the fall of 2008.
