Check It Out: Innovative inventions are the best way to celebrate Earth Day

By Joan Janzen
joanjanzen@yahoo.com

The cartoon showed a man dropping his empty bottles into the recycle bin, when out of the bin, a genie suddenly appeared, saying, “I’ll grant you three wishes if you can get me out of here!”

That genie would definitely be celebrating if he could escape from his bottle. On April 22 recycling enthusiasts also celebrated on the occasion of Earth Day. Although no one reported getting three wishes granted from a genie in a bottle, there are numerous other ways in which the occasion is celebrated. But what better way to acknowledge Earth Day than to honour the efforts of an inventor who resides right here on the Canadian prairies?

What could possibly be constructed out of old oilfield pipe, an anhydrous ammonia tank, a straw chopper, parts of a swather and other random objects? If you said, not much, you would be wrong, because a Vermilion farmer invented a recycling wonder machine using those items.

Danny Farkash spent two and a half years building his wonder machine, motivated by the need to find a way to recycle the 30,000 grain bags that end up in landfills each year. His machine transforms those grain bags into affordable plastic fence posts. His machine is able to use dirty agriculture plastic, while existing recyclers only want the clean stuff. But there’s more recycling going on during the process.

Farkash uses stacks of wooden pallets to heat the plastic to high temperatures. Those wooden pallets usually end up at a landfill where they are buried.

The hydraulics of an old Cockshut 1850 tractor run a combine and swather combination intake, which slowly pulls plastic into the machine, chops it into pieces and the debris blows out the stack.

Next, the plastic goes into a heated burner that’s made from the recycled anhydrous ammonia tank where it’s heated to 500 degrees. Hydraulic pressure enables a telescoping extruder inside the tank to push the melted plastic into moulds made out of oilfield pipe. The moulds are spun, allowed to cool in water, and then the pipe is pushed out with the help of an air hose. After that the pipe is stacked, ready to be purchased.

The telescoping extruder cleans the machine up as it goes, and Farkash says there’s very little maintenance required, but production is high, capable of producing two posts per minute. Those new posts won’t deteriorate in the sun, are almost unbreakable, are cheaper than wood posts, and will last forever. Farkash has access to a limitless supply of free plastic and wood pallets at municipal landfills, making this not only an environmental accomplishment, but also a viable entrepreneurial endeavour.

What better way to celebrate Earth Day than create an invention that uses waste products to refine waste products and produce a superior, affordable product? What is truly impressive is all that was possible without the need for government subsidies or assistance.

You can contact me at joanjanzen@yahoo.com