A busy year for WSDA pesticide disposal program

Washington Ag Today November 19, 2009 From Lynden to Walla Walla and Spokane to Long Beach-and areas in-between, the Washington State Department of Agriculture says it has completed another successful year of providing free waste pesticide disposal. WSDA spokesman Mike Louisell says it was a busy year for the Waste Pesticide Identification and Disposal Program.

Louisell: “This is the second largest year on record for out 21-year old program of collecting pesticides that farmers, commercial operators and others no longer need. We collected more than 167-thousand pounds of pesticides. Pesticides that maybe have been banned by the federal government or are no longer needed because someone is no longer farming, or maybe the pesticides are outdated. Maybe there are better products available to the customers.”

Most of the pesticides are picked up at regional collection events in agricultural communities but Louisell says the program has more flexibility now.

Louisell: “In fact our new policy is if you don‘t like the collection event schedule that we have organized go ahead and call us and we will see if we can come help you directly on your location for the pesticides you no longer need.”

Since it began in 1988 the pesticide disposal program has safely disposed of about 2.3 million pounds of unwanted chemicals.

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s Washington Ag Today on the Northwest Ag Information Network.