Agri-Plas, Inc. employees load triple-rinsed empty pesticide containers for recycling at the Washington County Pesticide Roundup Dec.1 at Crop Production Services in Cornelius.
Farmers from Washington and Clackamas Counties dropped off a collective 21,000 pounds of pesticide waste early this month during a free disposal event at
in Cornelius.
Hosted by the
, the Dec. 1 event was the first agricultural pesticide roundup in Washington County. Forty participants disposed of unused, old, restricted or damaged pesticides. They also left 1,300 pounds of triple-rinsed, empty pesticide containers for recycling by
in Brooks.
Project coordinator Nicole Ahr said the free event was anonymous because it made farmers feel more secure about dropping off pesticides, "particularly some of which are no longer legal to use."
in Clackamas took them for chemical processing, she said, after which they will be incinerated.
"Some farmers have had chemicals sitting in their sheds for decades that they had no way of disposing properly," she said. "This was the perfect event for that."
The farmers were all grateful for the opportunity, Ahr said, because it can be very expensive to dispose of pesticides in large quantities.
It's tricky, she said, because while farmers probably don't want the
to know they have these chemicals, it's also not necessarily their fault if the pesticides were inherited.
Ahr said the district partnered with eight organizations, such as
and the
, which donated approximately $48,000 – including a $29,000 grant from the DEQ – for the event.
Funds left over will be used for the next Washington County agricultural pesticide drop-off, which the district is targeting for next December, she said.