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This may appear as a strange topic but I'm in a situation trying to avoid dumping plastic bedding bags into our local landfill. For the past 20 years, we were able to recycle the shavings bags at the curb - simply tied up along with cardboard and other recyclables. In the past few months, several local towns have now banned picking up anything in plastic bags. Today my bags are sitting at the curb left behind.

I've called several places - local county recycle dept., Tractor Supply where purchased and NJ DEP who said up to each county. Basically go away because we are not interested. There are lots of farms in my county - so the local landfill will get buried in all these plastic bags.

Does anyone else have this situation? Do you have any suggestions how to be environmentally kind in their disposal?

I just called a local super market asking if maybe they recycle with some vendor and could I drop off bags. Fingers crossed they can help.

Try Terra-cycle. Web: https://www.terracycle.com/en-US/

I think you can get a mail bag to send the plastic to them, and they will handle it from there, if there are no local drop off spots for you.

Our county recycling no longer accepts plastic bags, but Lowes, and many of the grocery stores have recycling bins out front.

I'll check out the Lowes store nearby. Yes - the local grocery stores have a small recycle bin but it holds their grocery bags. I can't drop off a tied bundle of 50 shavings bags. However, I did inquire of the food store if they have a large recycle container in their loading dock area where I may drop off. The customer service representative was helpful and maybe I will hear back. Also, I noticed these bags do not have a recycle label marked on them. They are the Tractor Supply pine shavings bags. So far, they are not helpful or interested in this issue. I fear these bags may end up in the land fill.

In current printing and packaging standards, the recycle logo alone does not indicate "this is recycleable." Without a number inside the logo, it only means that the product/packaging was made from recycled materials.

If you are in a farming community, try the places where people buy bulk fertilizer and pesticide and weed control spray for their crops. Those places usually have a huge plastic recycling program where the plastic tubs the spray comes in can be safely washed out and recycled.

Josette wrote:Yes - the local grocery stores have a small recycle bin but it holds their grocery bags.

Don't know about bedding bags but I've seen other plastic "bags" (maybe plastic that is used to package together a number of similar items) that say on them to recycle in-store so I've put them in the recycle bins in my local Krogers.

I hope you find a place that will take this type of plastic...

So far frustrating. County Waste Management dept returned call and stated no plastic bags allowed nor suggestions except to try the store where purchased. Plus the bags are labeled with 'Tractor Supply' and they do not recycle them. I'll check out Whole Foods too as they are pro-environment.

Tuddy wrote:If you are in a farming community, try the places where people buy bulk fertilizer and pesticide and weed control spray for their crops. Those places usually have a huge plastic recycling program where the plastic tubs the spray comes in can be safely washed out and recycled.

Try this. I'm on the board of our Conservation District and once a year we meet with farmers at our local farm Co-op to collect their plastic pesticide/herbicide jugs. Here we can still recycle plastic, but all of a sudden not glass - thanks to the tariffs on China and China retaliating by not taking our recyclables.

Thanks for that suggestion. I will give NJ Agriculture Recycling Dept a call. Their site talks about recycling the pesticide plastic containers but will see what they say about these plastic bags. DH put them through an old trash compacter and they are compressed into a small cube. This will be an easy storage solution if I have to drive them once a month somewhere to recycle. So far, Wegmans and Whole Foods - no reply.

This article describes recycling silo bags, but I'm not sure if they are the same type of plastic as shavings bags. I reuse my TSC shavings bags for garbage bags, but they still end up in the landfill

https://www.hayandforage.com/print-arti ... anent.html

On a related topic, the soil and water conservation district in Fort Collins, CO has a program to recycle baling twine:
www.twinerecycling.com

Perhaps they can help find a shavings bag recycling program for you. I'm hoping a pilot program for baling twine gets started here in TX.