On June 24, the Cheadle Lions Club and 4-H Alberta partnered with Wheatland County to bring the first grain bag roundup to the county. Grain bags were collected at the county yard to later be shipped off to the Green Acre’s Hutterite Colony where they start a recycling process with the bags.
“One of those bags makes over 10,000 garbage bags, after it’s recycled” said Marlene Risdon with the Cheadle Lions.
Each grain bag weighs anywhere from 330 pounds to 400 plus pounds and all of it is 100 per cent recyclable. The three popular routes for disposing of the bags have been to bury them on farms, burn them or haul them to the landfill.
At the Green Acre Hutterite Colony, the plastic is ripped and shredded, and from there it goes into the washers where it is further refined. The heavier material, rocks and grains, sink to the bottom and the plastic will float to the top.