Survey of agricultural plastic waste in the American Midwest: usage and disposal

Published

January 1, 2026

Author(s)

Julie Rieland, Christina Gore, Kalman Migler, Kathryn Beers

Abstract

An estimated 4 % of global plastics are used for agricultural applications in forms such as films, jugs, fence posts, and hoses. However, there is limited data on actual use, and more importantly on its fate at end of life. We first present a comprehensive global literature review, describing agriculture plastic waste (APW) disposal practices over the past 25 years. We then present results on our survey (N = 73) in the American Midwest focused on the southern Kansas-Missouri border to better understand APW generation, disposal behaviors, and perceived barriers to participation in recycling programs. We found that rates of APW open-burning are high in this region, with 80 % (N = 69) of respondents burning some of their waste, resulting in an estimated 55 % by mass annual burn rate. This is the highest rate of burning observed in the global literature in the last 5 years. Simultaneously, our results show that there is interest in more sustainable options for farmers to handle their APW including landfill usage (68 %), recycling participation (75 %), and even reduction of plastic usage on the farm (63 %). The current 51 % participation in landfill and 25 % participation in recycling activities suggests that more investment is needed in this region to identify creative interventions to meet farmers' needs for convenient and cost-effective ways to dispose of APW.

Citation

Waste Management

Volume

209

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2025.115212

Local Download

Keywords

Agriculture, plastic, recycling, survey

Citation

Rieland, J. , Gore, C. , Migler, K. and Beers, K. (2026), Survey of agricultural plastic waste in the American Midwest: usage and disposal, Waste Management, [online], https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2025.115212, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=959693 (Accessed November 22, 2025)