As part of our continued commitment to providing updates on the Agricultural Plastics Recycling Pilot Program, we’ll release a monthly newsletter with updates on the Agricultural Plastics Recycling Group’s progress.
Since the program was announced on January 21, we have had an overwhelming response. We’ve heard from 50 municipalities that are interested in finding out more about hosting a collection site, 25 producers and 10 industry groups wondering about the next steps of the program. Due to the overwhelming response we also received notification that the Department of Agriculture and Forestry will extend the funding to $1 million. This will allow us to expand the program to add more collection sites.
To get the pilot off the ground, our priority is to hire a Program Operator. This will be the organization responsible for overseeing the collection and recycling of the grain bags and twine and working to communicate with all parties including the producers on how to bring in their material, the sites about collection and storage, and transportation to end-markets. An Expression of Interest was posted February 11 and will be due for any prospective Program Operators to submit their interest by February 25.
In addition to hiring an operator, we are also moving ahead in planning to do a market analysis to address current and future markets for recycling and an updated characterization report about what types and how much plastic is being used.
For those municipalities who are interested in hosting a collection site, we will have more information for you once a Program Operator is hired. Thank you for your patience and expect to hear more information on what that process will look like by the end of April.
Thank you to everyone for your questions and interest. Please continue to reach out with any questions or updates.
Al Kemmere APRG Chair
