[PK]

How do folk dispose of their plastic feed sacks? (There's a limit to how many Seymouresque chicken coops you can make with them.)

[Buttermilk]

Recycle wheelie bin here.

[bazzais]

with my big bales, its a case of cutting around the bottom then around the top and I roll up the side as its useful for weed suppressors in a line or putting under paths to stop growth coming through (for a while) - they are also usefull in lambing time to staple to our hurdles to stop the little ones getting through the gaps.

feed bags in all honesty get used for collecting other feed bags - then make a good hot fire in winter in my shed stove.

TBH we pay to get alot taken by a company called birch plastics who make benches and things out of it

I hoard bags as they are always usefull for carrying things in with or packing stuff away from rain and damp - always a surplus though

Like any space thats empty - they get filled by something.

[Lesley Silvester]

Use them for manure to be taken elsewhere as much a possible. Wish there was a way of recycling them.

[Penninehillbilly]

Depends how fast you are producing them 
I keep thinking of offering them to gardening friends for storage, rubbish etc., but we keep using them, wood for stove, rubbish, lots of little things, then when tatty go in waste bin.

[PK]

Yes we use some for a few practical purposes. Unfortunately they can't be included in the re-cycling collection in our area. At the moment we accumulate about 26 per month. Would burning them be more environmentally friendly than putting into our general waste which I presume means landfill? Interested to hear other thoughts.

[chrismahon]

They take them in the recycling bins here, bale them up and burn them in one of the 17 plastics fuelled electricity generating stations that have recently been built. So I suppose burning is better than landfill, if burning saves another fossil fuel.

[Marches Farmer]

We split them and use them to line chicken coops.  Weigh down the corners with heavy stones or bicks and it's easy to spot red mite if you lift the stones.  Also used for storing logs and charcoal, woodchip to make paths in the veg. garden, spilled hay from under the racks to use for the hens to scratch around in when penned.....

[Fleecewife]

We use ours for all of those things, plus to keep other stuff dry like cement, to fill with heavy smallholding rubbish for the bin, sending skins off for tanning, lying on under the Land Rovers or tractor to keep a bit dry when repairing breakdowns in inevitably wet weather, covering wet concrete when it rains on it, storing noxious weeds in so they rot and can go on the compost heap, giving to friends for their heavy garden rubbish and all the other uses they have for them.  There are never enough to try to find a recycling place, although there are sometimes gluts.  We have to clear all the old insulation and rubble from having the roof replaced from the attic - not looking forward to that, but we'll go through every feed sack we have.
It's like empty licky buckets - how would we ever manage without them 


Burning feed sacks, however secretively, gives off dioxins which are some of the most toxic chemicals to animals, including the human kind, and the environment.  Think lambs with two heads or extra legs, people with cancers, land polluted. Please don't.

[pharnorth]

If the sacks are polypropylene or polyethylene they will produce carbon dioxide and water if burnt. Possibly some carbon monoxide if burnt in an enclosed space (as is the case with any fire). It is halogenated plastics that will form dioxins on burning such as PVC or PVCd. If the plastic does not include chlorine or other halogen, no dioxin can be formed. 

I'm not advocating burning the sacks just adding a bit more info to the debate.

[Fleecewife]

If the sacks are polypropylene or polyethylene they will produce carbon dioxide and water if burnt. Possibly some carbon monoxide if burnt in an enclosed space (as is the case with any fire). It is halogenated plastics that will form dioxins on burning such as PVC or PVCd. If the plastic does not include chlorine or other halogen, no dioxin can be formed. 

I'm not advocating burning the sacks just adding a bit more info to the debate.

How can you tell which feed sacks are made of 'good' plastic, if there is such a thing, and which are made of 'bad' plastic?

[pharnorth]

Mostly these days the sacks should have it printed on them somewhere and PVC is less commonplace than it used to be because of the disposal issues so more likely to be a 'good' plastic but unless it is clearly stated that it is polypropylene or polyethylene and not a halogenated plastic assume the worse and don't burn it.

[waterbuffalofarmer]

For feed bags I reuse them for carting feed to animals, storing logs in for winter, storing anything really which I may need (apart from food lol). Black plastic we have a company coming to remove it, cheaper with larger amounts, take it clean or dirty, so theres a plus.

[Buttermilk]

For feed bags I reuse them for carting feed to animals, storing logs in for winter, storing anything really which I may need (apart from food lol). Black plastic we have a company coming to remove it, cheaper with larger amounts, take it clean or dirty, so theres a plus.

Dirty weighs more so you pay more for disposal.