The Perils of Pot(s)

Gardening seems as close to nature as you can get, but the 300 million pounds of plastic pots and trays used each year often clutter landfills.

Not in St. Louis, though, where volunteers with the Missouri Botanical Garden's decade-old recycling program have collected more than 300 tons of plastic from nurseries, landscapers, and growers for reprocessing into faux timbers. The garden plans to open new collection centers and year-round drop-off boxes and help set up similar programs around the country. For details, visit mobot.org/hort/activ/plasticpots.shtml.
--Greg Bailey

Comments

[Beth aka Fake Plastic Fish]

The problem is that recycling them into faux timber does nothing to stem the tide of new plastic plant pots being created. I really don't understand why nurseries won't just take them back and reuse them. Where I live, the biggest nursery near me is Long's Garden Center, and they have told me that absolutely will not take back the pots. So I absolutely won't buy plants from them. I am sticking with growing plants from seeds rather than buying plants in plastic pots.

[myearth]

In San Diego, they can be returned to the California Native Plant society or Las Pilitas Nursery. In the past year around 10,000 pots were returned. Other cities need an effort like this.

[myearth]

And I agree--why make them into something else when they can be reused. What's up with our culture of use one, pitch or make into something else. It makes no sense.

[cosmosenfold]

The pots aren't reused because of posible plant pathogen contaminations, It seems new pots are cheaper thandecontamination

[Ruth Busch]

I have to use old yogurt pots and the like because the nursery ones are expensive! I can only get 2 years out of them, but that helps. Be sure to drill holes in the bottom or your seedlings with drown!

[Alexis]

This year I'm trying homemade newspaper pots, to avoid the issue of getting rid of old pots. So far I'm really happy with them and I can make them in different sizes to suit whatever I'm starting. There's a wooden potmaking tool for sale out there, but there are also lots of instructions for folding your own with out the need to buy special equipment.

[Marti Morandi]

Agri-Plas expands recycling capactiy by Celeste LeCompte - 11.1.06
BROOKS, ORE. Aiming to boost recycling rates on Oregon farms, agricultural plastics recycling company Agri-Plas in September opened an expanded facility in Brooks.

One large target for the company is the state’s booming nursery industry. For the 15th consecutive year, the nursery industry has reported record sales, bringing in $877 million in 2005, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Survey released in September.

But along with dollars, jobs and potted plants, the 2,000 nurseries in Oregon each week produce about 80,000 pounds of plastic, a substantial portion of the nearly 20 million pounds of agricultural plastics disposed of annually, according to Dari Jongsma, president and founder of Agri-Plas.

Agri-Plas processes numerous varieties of plastics used in agricultural operations, including twine, silage bags, flower pots, and greenhouse plastics [see “Agricultural plastics seek recycling profits,” Sustainable Industries, Oct. 2004]. Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) is the only material not processed by the facility.

The 80,000 square-foot facility is capable of processing 3 million pounds of plastic each month. Agri-Plas received financial support from several state and county sources, including a $100,000 grant from the Governor’s Strategic Reserve Fund. The company moved from its previous location in Keizer, Ore., in 2004.

[momof3]

There are a growing number of nurseries out there that don't even use plastic pots, but a sort of peat material that decomposes in the soil. I live in a tiny town in Indiana and even one of our local nurseries do it. Also, complaining to managers of stores who don't sell this kind of plant may get them to try it. They might not even know the option is out there!

[Karen Linn]

Smaller nurseries will gladly take the sturdier pots pack. These are the ones who raise their own flowers and plants and thus need the pots. You might have to hunt around to find one, but it definitely will not be the big ones.

[Sara]

Plastic, of course, leached into your soil, and ends up in your food as well as everywhere in the enviroment. It's not really a good option at all.

[MaundPa Caver]

Use compressed peat pots whenever you can if you don't sow seeds directly into the garden. Whenever you can. eschew nurseries & garden centers that do not make peat pots available. Similarly, if possible, avoid using nurseries & garden centers that do not take back their petroleum-based, non-decomposable pots.

[Michelle]

I also don't understand why nurseries don't take them back. Wouldn't it use the same amount of energy to wash them as it does to make faux timber? Why can't they be reused? Or better yet, make plant pots out of the biodgradable "natural" plastic. Our culture's use-it-once-and-toss it mentality is terrible. Just because someone else used it first, does that mean we can't use it again?

[Karen Fitzpatrick]

In Minnesota's Twin Cities a large nursery, Gerten's, takes all and any plastic pots from anyone and has a re-cycler picking them up for re-making into something else. But, I have found that smaller growers at the Farmer's Market in St. Paul will take my pots and then sterilize them for re-sue as pots.

[lizzy]

i make paper and i wonder if recycled newspaper or maybe office paper would decompose well? it seems like garden centers should sell more environmentally friendly options to pots. my area has plastic or nothing. sickening

[Jacob Murray]

Although it is a wonderful idea, few people at this time have the money or transportation capabilities to obtain the recycled timbers. If the price were lower and they could make them lighter, then people all over would start recycling for the chance to get their very own recycled wall.

[Diane]

I was using the newspaper pots but became concerned about the ink so I tried something new this year and it worked great. I saved up empty paper towel and TP rolls and cut them into 2 and 3" pots, stuffed a piece of brown paper bag in the bottom and filled them with soil and seedlings. So far they have held up great and you can write on the outside of the pot!!

[bonnie]

One thing most people for get is the symbol actually reads REDUCE-REUSE-RECYCLE I see many readers are trying to make their own pots for seedlings. Great if you have the space... Those of us who can only get young plants are in a bind. If we educate ourselves to the options a reatiler may have and then go shopping. We can educate them as to what they might do with the pots. We could wash and decontaminate the pots ourselves before we take them anywhere, which might make a takeback more desirable. Farmers markets, school programs, neighborhood gardens are some of the possibilities rather than just deciding the retailer should take them back. This forum is great. Putting our thoughts together will help all of us.