Grainswest - Tech 2022

Tech 2022 grainswest.com 23 “For good or bad, all of this is made of scrap.” — Danny Farkash is a solution to the problem of abundant waste plastic. As a cow-calf operator, replacing rotten and broken wooden fenceposts every handful of years is a job he hates. “You see all these fences across Alberta,” he said, shaking his head. “With plastic fenceposts, we could save a lot of trees.” Farkash admitted he is not the first to produce plastic fenceposts, but his method is unique. Like Ford, he retooled an existing machine and created a new manufacturing process. “I’m not reinventing the wheel,” he said. “I’m just good at taking a wheel and making it turn in a different way.” As Ford did with cars, Farkash intends to do with fenceposts: streamline their production and produce them at high volume and an affordable price. Plastic fenceposts are currently more expensive than wooden ones. According to the Agricultural Plastics Recycling Group, Alberta farmers annually generate nearly 2,000 tonnes of used plastic grain bags. This material is typically too dirty to be processed by most recycling companies, so much of it winds up in landfill. “That’s a huge amount, so if you imagine that keeps going into dump sites, it’s crazy,” said Farkash. His intent is to create an energy- efficient production process that can produce a post per minute, and he believes he has finally done so. With a bit more tinkering, his fencepost maker should be ready for business later this year. Another of Farkash's devices, this unit straightens the scrap oilfield pipe he uses to create cattle yard products.