Managing Agricultural Plastics Waste through a Regulatory Approach

The Government of Alberta is gathering input on a regulatory approach for collecting and recycling agricultural plastics waste.

The Government of Alberta has heard from some members of the agricultural sector that the management of agricultural plastics waste is important to maintain or enhance public trust and market access.

Agricultural plastic products include, but are not limited to: 

• crop input packaging such as pesticide and fertilizer containers, drums, totes, and seed and inoculant bags, and 
• plastics to store agricultural outputs such as grain bags, twine, bale, wrap, net wrap and silage plastics.

While agricultural plastics waste recycling opportunities are currently in place for select products, they are voluntary or temporary pilot project approaches. Shifting to a regulatory approach would provide long-term certainty for material management, a level playing field for plastic producers, and economies of scale to better support processing facilities.

Regulatory approaches require government agencies to restrict or direct the activities of regulated parties using terms and conditions within statutory and regulatory instruments, operating permits, licences, approvals or codes of practice.

In Alberta, there are currently two regulatory approaches for the end-of-life management of waste materials that can be recycled - extended producer responsibility (EPR) and stewardship.  Either of these approaches could be considered for managing agricultural plastics waste or another regulatory approach could be developed.

Under EPR, material producers are responsible for operating and funding systems to collect, process and recycle the materials they supply into Alberta when those products are no longer needed. These costs can be passed through to the consumers of those products. Currently, single-use products, packaging and printed paper products as well as hazardous and special products are managed under the EPR Regulation. Additional materials could be included by amending the regulation.