08/07/08 Disposing of Pesticides Part 2

Disposing of Pesticides Part 2. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. The Washington State Department of Agriculture is once again doing their free pesticide disposal program around the state and program director Joe Hoffman says it's a great chance to get some things cleaned out. HOFFMAN: The types of materials that we accept are pesticides which includes the fungicides and herbicides and so on. Basically anything that was meant to kill, mitigate or prevent a pest in farms or businesses. If you have household quantities of pesticides you should contact your local county for collection information. Once the materials are collected Hoffman says they are safely disposed. HOFFMAN: Once it has been collected at the collection event it gets packaged into drums and boxes and most pesticides are what is considered land-banned materials meaning they cannot go to a landfill or hazardous waste landfill so currently most of the material goes to Utah and Arkansas and goes for thermal destruction through high temperature incinerators. Maybe you know you have some old materials but are not sure what it really is. Hoffman says that is not a problem. HOFFMAN: We also have someone who can come out and go through that pesticide shed who knows the material ad can figure out what is still usable and what isn't and certainly someone who is not experienced with pesticides we don't encourage them to go in and sort through the materials. For more information, dates and locations, contact the Washington State Department of Ag. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.