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The Minnesota Department of Agriculture is postponing a series of free waste pesticide collections available to 11 Minnesota counties due to concerns of COVID-19 on collection participants and facilities.

There will not be scheduled collection events in 2020 in Crookston, Hallock, Thief River Falls, Ulen or Warren.  These agricultural or business waste pesticide collections served the following counties: Beltrami, Cass, Clay, Clearwater, Lake of the Woods, Kittson, Marshall, Pennington, Polk, Red Lake and Roseau. The events will be moved to July 2021.

Those who planned to get rid of pesticides at a 2020 event should follow these guidelines to safely store the chemicals until next year:

• Store the chemicals in their original containers with labels.

• The containers should be kept in a dry, secured area free of tampering.

• Leaky containers should be placed in a secondary container so the contents are not released into the environment.

The MDA’s Waste Pesticide Collection Program has helped Minnesotans safely dispose of over 8 million pounds of unusable and unwanted pesticides since the program began in 1990. The program accepts unwanted, unusable agricultural and consumer-type pesticides including insecticides, fungicides, herbicides and rodenticides. The collections are open to farmers, homeowners, commercial pesticide applicators, golf courses, lawn care companies, structural pest control operators and other pesticide users.

Contact the Minnesota Department of Agriculture’s Jane Boerboom at 651-201-6540 or jane.boerboom@state.mn.us with questions or if you have 300 or more pounds of pesticides ready for disposal.