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Hail damaged ag plastic not recyclable, even if repaired
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DARLINGTON - With recent storms that produced damaging hail across the county, some farmers have had to repair agriculture silage bags, wrapped bales and bunk covers to protect the tons of valuable feed commodities stored inside.

Many different materials can be used to seal punctures to the High Density Polyethylene No. 4 plastic. Products include foam, acrylic coating, silicone and polyurea as sealants to protect the feed from exposure to oxygen which causes the feed to spoil and be unsafe to feed to livestock.

Plastic that has any foreign material applied to seal punctures is not accepted through the Revolution Plastic Recycling Program. Hail damaged areas on the bags, bale, or bunks that has been repaired must be cut off and are not admissible in the on-farm recycling dumpsters provided to farmers free of charge by Revolution Plastic. It is recommended that the treated plastic is removed from untreated plastic and disposed of in a landfill. Burning of any plastic is not recommended and illegal.

Revolution Plastics now has over 3,000 dumpsters on farms across Wisconsin and another 1,300 dumpsters in Minnesota collecting silage bags, bunker covers without scrim, bale wrap, and oxygen barrier. Grant and Lafayette County rank first and third with number of dumpsters on farms. Currently more than 3,000,000 pounds of used plastic is being diverted from landfills and illegal burn piles each month. Farmers no longer have to spend the time illegally burning the plastic on the farm, and they don't have to pay waste haulers to take the plastic to the landfill.