Source: enniomorry11 Flickr
We are now fully into Spring and many people will be getting their vegetable beds and new plants into their gardens. Instead of developing piles of different sized plant pots in your back shed or garage after taking out the plants or seedlings return them to the garden centre you bought them from.
On a recent trip to Southern Woods I noticed that they were now taking back their plastic plant pots for a small discount on your next purchase. This is a great way to reduce your plastic waste and ensure that the pots get reused over and over. And will also lessen the demand for the production of new pots which will reduce the environmental impact of pot manufacturing (energy, resources and waste).
Check with your local garden centre if they have pot take back/recycling scheme (even if they won’t give a discount it is still worth returning them) – just make sure you take back the plant pots that originally came from that garden centre and they are clean and not chipped or broken in anyway.
Source: willdobson Flickr
If you have pots that you can’t take back re-use them in the garden to raise seedlings such as tomatoes, chillies, squash and other plants before planting them in the garden.
With gardening (particularly growing vegetables) becoming more popular there will be a growing number of pots being manufactured and wasted. Garden waste in this form will become more of an issue so it is worth thinking ahead before buying – maybe sow seeds instead for veges.
Reduce then reuse then recycle.
Tags: consumption, diverting waste from landfill, environmental sustainability, gardening, plant pots, plastics, recycle, waste
