Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

This site is currently in beta, and your feedback is helping shape its ongoing development.

Data from: Performance of a cotton gin machine that removes plastic contamination from seed cotton

Published by Agricultural Research Service | Department of Agriculture | Metadata Last Checked: January 27, 2026 | Last Modified: 2025-11-21
This is USDA-ARS data from the publication: "Performance of a cotton gin machine that removes plastic contamination from seed cotton." The study was conducted during the Fall of 2020 with continued data analysis thru September 2021. Plastic contamination is the most pressing issue for the U.S. cotton industry today. Due to this problem, U.S. cotton has lost the 7 cents per pound premium it brought on international cotton markets. Plastic contaminants are often introduced prior to ginning, but cotton gin machinery can tear and shred the plastics so that they become more difficult to remove. A cotton gin machine developed and used to combat the plastic contamination problem in Chinese cotton was tested to compare its performance at removing typical plastics found in U.S. cotton to that of conventional cotton gin seed cotton cleaners.

Find Related Datasets

Click any tag below to search for similar datasets

data.gov

An official website of the GSA's Technology Transformation Services

Looking for U.S. government information and services?
Visit USA.gov