In the prairie provinces, farmers return empty containers to centralized collection sites. From there pesticide manufacturers pay to have the containers shredded, while diverting some money to recycling programs.
But the Toronto-based Crop Protection Institute, representing pesticide manufacturers and dealers, is calling for a system that returns the jugs to retailers.
Paul Cook of CPI said asking farmers to return containers to retail outlets enables dealers to inspect the jugs for proper cleaning and refuse those that do not meet standards. All jugs returned to collection sites are supposed to be triple-rinsed.
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“In Saskatchewan, 30 percent of the jugs returned by farmers aren’t rinsed. This poses problems for people that have to handle the plastic jugs and for municipalities that have collection sites ….” he said.
He added that in Manitoba, where municipalities have some manned collection sites, the return rate is 25 percent.
Having retail outlets collect the containers will clean up producer practices and lead to improved return rates, he said.
But some members of the Western Grain Elevator Association, the Canadian Association of Agriculture Retailers, the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities and the Union of Manitoba Municipalities have questions about the changes, which they feel a CPI pilot program under way in Saskatchewan does not address.
Keith Carlton, vice-president of SARM, sees what he considers a flaw in the proposed system.
“Will an ag chemical retailer turn around and tell a good customer that returns a dirty jug to take it back? Probably not. We see a lot of other problems as well.”
Risks and liability
Saskatchewan Wheat Pool and United Grain Growers, members of CAAR and WGEA, are two of the largest farm chemical dealers on the Prairies. Through their memberships in these organizations, they have expressed concerns about liability for retail collection sites, risks to workers and increases costs of a new system, which in turn would come from farmers’ pockets.
As well, Carlton said many SARM members fear rural municipalities will end up with the lion’s share of containers in their landfills in areas where they have closed collection sites and where there are few retailers to return the jugs to.
CPI has already set up retail collection systems in Ontario, New Bruns-wick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Quebec and British Columbia.
A similar system now being tested in Saskatchewan began in 1997 with 15 dealers and was expanded to 140 in 1998.
Meanwhile the Saskatchewan government is staying out of the debate.
“As government we like to see industry taking responsibility for their waste products. If nothing else this issue has brought about a search for solutions to the problem of empty pesticide containers,” said Victor Chang, of Saskatchewan’s environmental protection department.
Funding for collected used pesticide containers comes from a levy charged on each container sold.
Canadians lead the globe with 62 percent of pesticide containers recovered and recycled annually.
