07/18/05 State will take those empty containers

The state has safely disposed of 380 thousand pounds of plastic containers since it started a free program about a decade ago. I'm Bill Scott and on Today's Idaho Ag News how you get rid of those containers safely and at no cost. Vic Mason heads up the state program that helps producers, applicators, dealers and others safely dispose of plastic pesticide containers at no cost. Mason has a chipper that will take containers, crush and grind them so they can be recycled into products like pallets or parking blocks. MASON "And the plastic that we recycled last year in a condensed facility would be basically a two story building and if it was uncrushed basically its a ten story building what the plastic that we kept out of the landfill last year." For fiscal year 2005 which ended June 30th more than 130 thousand containers were collected in Idaho. For this fiscal year that number is expected to jump to 150 thousand. Both are a long way from the nine thousand containers collected in the first year, 1994. MASON "A tentative schedule on our website right now which will show you where we're heading out so it will kind give you some time frames of when we be in the area. If they produce a lot of containers like an aerial applicator we'll go to an aerial applicator's facility during their busy season probably every other week." Mason does require that the plastic containers up to 55 gallons in size be cleaned, tripled washed before he takes them. Today's Idaho Ag News Bill Scott