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February 18, 2026 - Wrapped in Sustainability

Compostable bale net wrap offers promise for reducing agricultural plastic.

Is your farmyard littered with piles of net wrap – stubbornly stuck to the ground or piling up in daunting heaps? Almost every rancher or farmer has wrestled with agricultural plastics in some form, whether it be net wrap, twine, grain bags, silage tarps, or pesticide containers.

According to Alberta Beef Producers, an estimated 7,000 to 12,0000 metric tons of agricultural plastics are generated every year on Alberta farms alone.

Many of these products have recycling opportunities through programs such as Clean Farms. Unfortunately, a recycling market for net wrap is not currently available. The complex plastic netting is easily contaminated with hay, straw, mud, rocks and other materials which make it difficult and costly to recycle.

This is why used net wrap can become such a nuisance on the farm. If it’s not filling up your dumpster daily, it's making itself comfortable in your field or bale yard. Regardless of how diligent one is in picking it up, there always seems to be some left behind that gets frozen to the ground, caught up in equipment, or even ingested by livestock.

After running into many of these issues with traditional net wrap, an Alberta ranching family came up with a more sustainable solution to wrapping feed — Nature’s Net Wrap, the world's first compostable bale net wrap.

The net wrap is made from “biopolymers that are sourced from plant based renewable resources,” and is fully consumable by soil microorganisms and enzymes, says Nature’s Net Wrap. It is also certified compostable by the Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI) and has passed ecotoxicity testing to ensure no harmful chemicals are released into the environment during breakdown.

Nature’s Net Wrap appears to fit into many current management practices. Little to no modification is needed to run it in most balers, and it matches industry standards of 2 ¼ wraps for hay and 3 ¼ wraps for straw or other forages. 

Tests completed by its founders indicate that the net wrap maintains structural integrity for at least 12 months in Alberta conditions. “Mushroom stacking,” where bales are stacked with the bottom row on end and the top row on their side, is recommended for best storage results.

While not a brand-new product, with prototypes being tested in 2022 and it officially launching in 2024, several ongoing studies are being conducted to further analyze the product and how it interacts with the environment.

Current testing by the Applied Research department at Lakeland College is taking a deeper look at how quickly Nature's Net Wrap degrades once it is removed from the bale, as well as further quantifying composting timelines. They are also examining how Nature’s Net Wrap breaks down within a cow’s rumen (stomach). 

As net wrap can often be found scattered around the field and is at risk of being ingested during feeding, these ongoing tests are important in understanding the additional benefits and true impact of this environmentally promising product.

With innovations like Nature’s Net Wrap, which was brought to life by ranchers here in Alberta, there is potential for making other agricultural plastics more environmentally compatible.

Agricultural innovation is not limited to scientists and researchers alone – it can be brought to life by farmers and ranchers who work with agricultural plastics daily and have a true grasp on what makes a product both sustainable and efficient.