Many farmers are frustrated with all of the plastic that clutters their farmyards.

Tarps from silage piles, plastic containers, net wrap, totes and drums pile up. It is estimated that 12.5 million tons of agricultural plastic are used annually in the U.S.

A company near Lennox transforms the plastic generated on farms and from other sources into something that every farm needs — 4-inch and 6-inch fence posts. It’s a brilliant example of waste reimagined.

Billy Pollema, vice president of sales for ZahnTech, said the company transforms waste plastic into a product needed by the ag market.

“We sell these posts nationwide, and some have gone to Florida and the Caribbean islands. In those places, they struggle with wood posts rotting due to the salt water and humidity, so this is a good fit for them,” Pollema said.

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“Currently, the company processes 30,000 pounds of plastic daily,” he said. “We take it in, shred it, melt it and turn it into something useful. Our goal is to triple what we can process.”

People are thinking more about being sustainable and many want to get to zero waste. The company wants to rebrand recycling and change the way the world views garbage.

ZahnTech is eager to keep plastic out of the landfill.

“We encourage people to bring plastic to us from all over South Dakota. We are even getting some from Wyoming. Our company is partnering with farmers plus different industries. We take it all in as long as it is plastic. There are seven types of plastic in our formulation,” Pollema said.

Trucks constantly pull up to drop off their loads, he said.

“We take chemical jugs as long as they’ve been properly rinsed. We get thousands of barrels from ag companies during the summer and fall, plus plastic pallets,” Pollema said. “We’ve partnered with the city of Beresford to take their curbside pickup materials. Every two or three weeks, it comes to us in bales. They’ll dump it in our shed and we’ll take it from there. We do not accept liquids, glass, metal or hazardous chemicals.”

In addition to ag plastic, ZahnTech is getting semi loads of plastic waste from many industry partners, including Glanbia Nutritionals, which has locations all over the country. Recently, 10 semi-loads of Walmart bags were dropped off. That’s 500,000 pounds of bags waiting to be shredded.

The process uses a primary shredder and a secondary shredder, reducing the plastic to three-eighths inch. Then the material goes through the hot melt extruder and flows into molds for the 4-inch and 6-inch posts.

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There’s strong demand for the posts.

“We price them to be competitive with the wood market as farmers don’t want to pay more than they have to. ZahnTech is one of the few companies using this process. In addition to the company in New Zealand, there is one in Canada and one in Pennsylvania,” Pollema said.

He was at the recent Dakota Farm Show in Vermillion showing people the pros of using the posts and explaining what the company does. The plastic posts can replace the green-treated posts or posts treated with creosote to prevent rot. Wood posts normally need to be replaced every 10 years or sooner. ZahnTech information said testing shows their posts will last 100 years.

Business sparked by frustration from lack of plastic scrap recycling options

The owner, Avery Zahn, started the process, and Pollema shared Zahn’s story.

Zahn has owned a pipeline business. His frustration stemmed from the lack of plastic scrap recycling options, forcing him to take the materials to the landfill. After he sold his business, Zahn noticed the railroad ties around his horse arena were rotting and needed to be replaced. Remembering the unrecyclable plastic, he searched for a way to make something usable from it, such as fence posts. He found that in New Zealand, a company developed a process to do that.

“He bought his first extrusion machine from New York, brought it to South Dakota and started figuring out a way to melt the plastic and turn it into fence posts,” Pollema said “Avery tried different formulations and produced a composite to get the posts to the needed strength. After a year and a half of research and development, the company started making and selling products. That was a year and a half ago. It all started with Avery looking at the posts and deciding, ‘I’m going to come up with a better way.’”

The biggest cost for ZahnTech is electricity, with 3,000 amps of service coming into the production facility.

“It’s our major cost and it would be great if we could reduce that, maybe by using some solar power,” Pollema said.

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While the electricity is expensive, the plastic is free.

“People are looking for places to get rid of their plastic,” he said. “We are diverting as much from the landfill as possible. It’s a great selling point for our posts as people can see we are doing something good for the environment. For years, people buried plastic, and it will take years to degrade. Many people get behind what we are doing.”

ZahnTech produces 300 plastic fence posts per day

The company produces 300 posts a day with six people in the production line who do the shredding, bundling, receiving material and fabrication. In all, there are 11 employees.

The goal is to handle 40,000 to 50,000 pounds of plastic a day with the two main lines. When ZahnTech adds another line, it will be able to handle 60,000 to 70,000 pounds a day.

Currently, ZahnTech is transforming 98% of waste into sustainable products,” Zahn said.

“We’re not far from achieving our goal — 100% waste conversion. The company wants to build a greener, cleaner world, one fence post at a time,” he said.

On its website, ZahnTech claims its posts are 10 times stronger and 20 times more durable than wood. They are flexible and can be post-driven, cut, drilled, nailed, screwed, bolted or stapled. The posts are fire-resistant, non-conductive, won’t split or rot and are impenetrable by water, frost and pests, per the website. They can also be pulled up and repositioned.

Connie Sieh Groop of Frederick is a veteran journalist and writer who has focused on all aspects of the agriculture industry during her career.