This month farmers, ranchers, pesticide dealers and homeowners can bring any unusable pesticides to Project Safe Send collection locations.
The program has been running for 27 years in North Dakota and helps safely dispose of unwanted, unused or banned chemicals. Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring says in that time, thousands of people have brought in 4.7 million pounds of chemicals to Project Safe Send.
"We've had some years, certainly, a couple hundred to three hundred thousand pounds of product. And it varies from year to year, we've been all the way down into the sixty, seventy thousand pound range, and I believe we've had years where we've had close to half a million pounds of product collected."
Goehring says to check storage areas for any unusable pesticides and set them aside for Project Safe Send. He says if containers are damaged or leaking, they can be packed into larger containers with absorbent materials. Anyone hoping to drop off more than a thousand pounds of pesticides needs to pre-register a week before drop-off, but no other pre-registration is required.
"We try to work with everyone to keep them safe, keep children and pets safe. Some of our elderly folks, they can sometimes inadvertently be exposed to something they didn't even know they had. So it's a good practice - if you have a question, give us a call - but we are set up to accept these unusable, banned, old pesticides - and dispose of them properly and get them out of people's way.
To pre-register, contact Jeremiah Lien at the North Dakota Department of Agriculture at 701-425-3016 or email him at jjlien@nd.gov.
The collections will run from 8 a.m. to noon local time at the North Dakota Department of Transportation facilities in the following cities:
July 9 Wyndmere 7775 Hwy. 18
July 10 Ashley 520 7th St. SW
July 11 Bismarck 218 S. Airport Rd.
July 12 Hettinger 121 1st St. N.
July 15 Dickinson 1700 3rd Ave. W. Ste. 101
July 16 Tioga
July 17 Minot 1305 Hwy. 2 Bypass E.
July 18 Harvey 501 Jackson Ave.
July 23 Larimore 1524 Towner Ave.
July 24 Landgon 10424 Hwy. 5
July 25 Devils Lake 1905 Schwan Ave. NW
July 26 Valley City 1524 8th Ave. SW