Cotton Industry One-Step Closer to Bale Wrap Standards

LUBBOCK, TX – At the recent Beltwide Cotton Conference in San Antonio, Dr. John Wanjura updated attendees about a new standard to help reduce waste and contamination from round cotton bale modules.

In 2018, he explains, the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers’ Cotton Engineering Committee formed a subcommittee to look at developing a material performance standard for the plastic wrap.

Wanjura, who heads up the USDA Agricultural Research Service’s Ginning Laboratory in Lubbock, says the group wanted to develop standards in an effort to reduce the plastic contamination that has been plaguing the industry over the past ten years.

The standard, he said, was actually an update based on standards for existing module tarps and under the update there are two different requirements including a laboratory requirement and a field testing portion – which was put in place to help reduce the opportunity for tearing, to protect the cotton module and to reduce contamination.

The group voted at the Beltiwde to approve the new standards, and now it’s just a matter of time before official approval takes place.
(SOURCE: All Ag News)