The API Pilot program has been designed to bring innovation to agriculture by providing a solution to the Ag Plastic waste issue.

Ag Plastics Pre Cleaning Machine:

• The Pre Cleaning machine is mounted behind any tractor weighing more than the machine itself.
• The three point machine is lowered over the start of each bed where the plastic is fed through the machine picking up the plastic off the bed. 
• Once the bundle is achieved to its approximate weight and width, the bundle is dropped at either end of the field where it is ready for removal and transported to its recycling destination.  This start to finish service is a charge per acre for services rendered.

Our Goals:  

• To give dirty mulch film a new name “Pre Cleaned Plastic Bundles.”
• Offer a one stop, A – Z service, providing cheaper clean-up costs per acre.
• Divert only pre cleaned Ag Plastic mulch film waste from the landfills.
• To control the dirt to an exact minimum leaving it in the field where it originates. 
• To streamline the handling of these plastic bundles by establishing standards that can be acceptable to both agriculture and recycling industries.
• Provide feedstock for alternative energy and green building by-products.

Some of these standards are:

• Using machinery in the field that “pre-cleans” the mulch film before it is bundled. 
• Producing bundles that can be handled and transported with a minimum/maximum weight and standard dimension.
• Providing tracking information along with bundles.
• Listing manufacturer’s mulch film product specifications and polymer content.
• Securing controlled cleaned bundles only in designated pre-cleaned yards for holding and shipping.  
• Implementing core drilling sampling from random bundles and field locations for a cleaned-by-weight analysis.

Purpose of Ag Recycling Standards:

• To ensure proper cleaning, tracking and minimized handling for future recycling.
• Reduce steps in clean-up costs enabling recyclers to utilize Ag Plastic Waste for producing existing products and for creating new by-product technologies.   
• To collect data on the tons of plastic being generated from peppers, strawberries or other covered crops and green houses that utilize plastics.
• To access plastic manufacturer’s specifications, polymer content of pre-cleaned bundles for future end users and product chemistry. 
• To know where plastic sources originated from (i.e. grower and county.)   
• Streamline only pre-cleaned plastics to thermal conversion facilities that produce #2 fuel oil, synthetic diesel (Syn-diesel) and carbon black by-products.

For more information please contact Brian Tupy at: agplasticsbt@aol.com