



"You've got to pay for the plastic to get it, and then you have to pay to get rid of it, so if you can keep it clean and recycle it, at least you don't have to pay to get rid of it," said Jim Doyle, an organic dairy farmer in Chelsea.

He estimates he has spent about $200 a year to get rid of the plastic from his round bales. Now, he's been compacting and stockpiling the plastic in a barn and plans to haul about 2 tons to Montpelier once the weather gets warmer.

The program was started by Casella Resource Solutions, the Vermont Agency of Agriculture and Agrimark/Cabot Creamery Cooperative with help from Cornell University's Recycling Ag Plastics Project, which serves parts of New York.


Wisconsin and California also have some recycling programs for farm plastics.


Many farmers now pay to dispose of the plastic, but some bury it and others burn it, which is illegal in Vermont because it's toxic, said Annie MacMillan, toxicologist with the Vermont Agency of Agriculture. The plastics recycling program was started to deal with waste that was not being addressed on farms, she said.




"The issue is it has to be relatively clean, so farmers can't be bringing in dirty, muddy material," MacMillan said.