Plastic plant pots. Looking for alternatives…

Are you confused as to whether your plastic plant pots can be recycled. Garden Ninja explains exactly why we need to move away from plastic and what the eco-friendly alternatives are.

Presented by Garden Ninja, Manchesters Garden Designer and blogger Lee Burkhill. He's an RHS Award winning garden designer and expert panellist on BBC Radio Manchester's Saturday morning garden phone in.

Why not subscribe to my youtube channel? https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuhMHrXyf2bvga2Mq0DJvwQ

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gardenninjadesign/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Garden_Ninja
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/garden_ninja_lee/

If your garden like me you'll be well aware that pretty much everything you buy whether it's a plant in a pot, compost or the garden equipment usually comes with some form of plastic now plastic is incredibly resilient you can do a lot with it but it takes up to 400 to 500 years to fully break down and you may have watched things like the blue planet or read newspaper articles about how plastics and polluting not only our seas but also the land and getting into our food chain there's been loads of press on it there's been some really good ideas but what I thought I'd do today is show you the research that I wanted to take it over the past few months to give you different alternatives to things like the plastic plant pot so come on let me show you!

So here we have just a very small example of black plastic plant pots that are causing a real issue in terms of recycling so the biggest issue with plastic plant pots is that they can't be recycled easily because they've got a black pigment in them which is carbon a lot of the recycling centers say that they can't recycle them because the infrared beam that they use to spot plastic does not work on these plant pots so they basically end up in landfill or being incinerated for energy.

So all that carbon and all the chemicals that are contained in the plastic just get pushed back into the atmosphere at a rapid rate. Now there are some companies that have started to introduce colored plastic
into their plant pot production Aeroplas are one very company that Ihave
introduced the taupe plant pot and this means that the infrared beams in the recycling centers can pick them up.

However, a more concerning issue that was raised by Gardening Without Plastic is that out of the 79 percent of councils in the UK that do kerbside plastic recycling 87 percent of those would not recycle plant pots even if they were picked up by their machinery they simply don't offer that facility for plastic plant parts which is really frustrating because people are making these changes in the industry but at the core of this problem is that the recycling facilities just aren't there available for them so if we can't recycle plastic properly then we need to start looking at alternatives to plastic entirely and that's what I'm going to move onto next.

There are plenty of home alternatives that you can use back in your own gardens to avoid using black plastic plant parts so things such as Coir plant pots which break down you can use toilet rolls, loo rolls to plant your seedlings in and then plant them straight out you can make your own small pots out of newspaper wax paper and cow dung but the issue with all of these recyclable alternatives is that they're not very suitable for transporting plants from nurseries to be the wholesalers or to customers and that's what I'm going to be looking at today is what can we do to get plants from nurseries that doesn't involve this black plastic.

Now the first alternative that I've uncovered are for people that tend to
use plastic in the garden to display plants of lovers where I've been sent these which are bamboo fiber plant pots.Now they come in a range of wacky colors but the claim is that if they're sent to landfill they will biodegrade without a trace within 5 years so if you're the kind of person that maybe has a balcony or patio and you're using plastic to display plants these are a great alternative.

So what about people that want to buy pants without plastic now edibleculture UK who are based down South have come up with a really ingenious idea and it's this the posi pots now they've created this entirely themselves it's made of recyclable card and if you can see that little lolly stick skewer that secures the planter there's no glue adhesive they write the plant name on this stick which also biodegrades, I think it's a brilliant idea!

So the next innovative example comes from Bluebell cottage nursery up here in the Northwest of England now Sue Beesley the owner has been championing the move away from plastics for some time she will deliver them in a cardboard box wrapped in wax paper with biodegradable labels with a plant name on so completely removing the need for plastic tags name labels or any plastic plant box which is a great idea.