SASKATOON – If Saskatchewan farmers don’t clean their chemical containers before returning them to collection sites, they’ll wind up paying more in the end.
The cost of handling empty containers is covered by the chemical companies, but if the containers aren’t clean, it costs more to recycle them. The manufacturers then charge more for their products so farmers who use the chemicals will ultimately foot the bill, said Roberta Windrum, executive director of the Saskatchewan Pesticide Container Management Association.
“The chemical companies fund the program, but as in any business, costs are passed on in the price of the product.”
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The association runs the recycling program for the industry’s group, the Crop Protection Institute of Canada. Last year it spent $1.1 million to collect 1.26 million empty pesticide containers from 275 designated sites in Saskatchewan, a third of the total collected from across Canada.
Rural municipalities see to it that containers are stacked, sorted and ready for contractors to pick up from approved storage sites. The RMs receive up to $500 from the association to help pay for site upkeep.
The containers are collected by Curtis Construction, then recycled.
The steel is used in bars for reinforcing concrete in construction and the plastic for fence posts or curb stops. Both materials are also to create heat energy.
The association is concerned about unwashed containers returned for recycling.
“If every farmer was to rinse out containers you could look at drastically reducing the cost of recycling,” Windrum said.
Every container that comes into contact with an unwashed one must be treated as hazardous and is more expensive to recycle. Containers with chemical still inside can also pollute a recycling site.
“So far, we don’t know of any sites that are contaminated, but there’s that possibility,” Windrum said.
The project, started in Saskatchewan in the early 1980s, is now running in eight other provinces. In 1995, nearly 3.5 million containers were collected nationally, an increase of two percent from 1994.
