Throughout Saskatchewan, 20,000 grain bags are sold every year to farmers as an alternative to grain bins. While solving a short-term storage issue, the proper disposal of grain bags is a new issue that has now been introduced into the farming community. In 2011, a grain bag recycling initiative was piloted in Saskatchewan. The premise of the program was to set up various collection sites across the province for farmers to drop off their used grain bags. Once a big enough reserve is established, the used grain bags get shipped to countries such as Malaysia for processing, later to be bought back as a new product.
Environmental sustainability and accountability has been discussed for years, but is quickly gaining awareness among farming households. EcoGenX was created by a fellow farmer, Dallon Leger, who fostered the idea for an entrepreneurship opportunity when searching for an environmentally friendly, but also convenient way to recycle his used grain bags instead of the conventional dumping method.
EcoGenX is a Saskatchewan-grown business with a vision to divert waste from landfills, starting with grain bags. To accommodate busy farmers, EcoGenX offers the first of it's kind mobile service across the province. Recycling is a large task and may seem daunting to a farmer who is required to fit time into his busy schedule to roll, load, and haul his used grain bags to the nearest collection site. This is where EcoGenX felt that the convenience of their mobile service could contribute to the recycling count by providing the farmer with a quick and easy rolling and hauling service.This proved to be true when EcoGenX successfully collected 900,000 pounds of plastic from across Saskatchewan in the spring season of 2017 using a single truck and trailer.
EcoGenX is also in the stages of creating a processing plant within Saskatchewan, alleviating the need for packaging, shipping, and sending our waste elsewhere to be processed. The plant will generate jobs within Saskatchewan, create a new Saskatchewan-made product, and also hold the province, producers and farmers alike, accountable for the waste they produce.
Recycling is a small solution to some of the environmental issues of today. However, it is a small step in the right direction to achieve environmental sustainability in the farming community, and certainly a huge step in the right direction from illegally burning or burying grain bags.
Environmental sustainability and accountability has been discussed for years, but is quickly gaining awareness among farming households. EcoGenX was created by a fellow farmer, Dallon Leger, who fostered the idea for an entrepreneurship opportunity when searching for an environmentally friendly, but also convenient way to recycle his used grain bags instead of the conventional dumping method.
EcoGenX is a Saskatchewan-grown business with a vision to divert waste from landfills, starting with grain bags. To accommodate busy farmers, EcoGenX offers the first of it's kind mobile service across the province. Recycling is a large task and may seem daunting to a farmer who is required to fit time into his busy schedule to roll, load, and haul his used grain bags to the nearest collection site. This is where EcoGenX felt that the convenience of their mobile service could contribute to the recycling count by providing the farmer with a quick and easy rolling and hauling service.This proved to be true when EcoGenX successfully collected 900,000 pounds of plastic from across Saskatchewan in the spring season of 2017 using a single truck and trailer.
EcoGenX is also in the stages of creating a processing plant within Saskatchewan, alleviating the need for packaging, shipping, and sending our waste elsewhere to be processed. The plant will generate jobs within Saskatchewan, create a new Saskatchewan-made product, and also hold the province, producers and farmers alike, accountable for the waste they produce.
Recycling is a small solution to some of the environmental issues of today. However, it is a small step in the right direction to achieve environmental sustainability in the farming community, and certainly a huge step in the right direction from illegally burning or burying grain bags.