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Recycle those garden pots

Posted on September 20th, 2007 – 2:49 PM
By Connie Nelson

This weekend you can do something for the environment — and your garage: Recycle your plastic plant pots.

You can drop off clean plastic pots between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at metro-area garden centers, including Linder’s, Highland, Gertens, Lotus, Mickman, Dundee and area Bachman’s. (For a complete list of participating garden centers, go to www.GardenMinnesota.com.
They’ll take garden pots of any size and color, but hanging pots should have the hangers removed. (No household plastic.)

Plastic plant pots are the bane of green-leaning gardeners. Most nurseries don’t re-use them because of the risk of spreading plant diseases, and many cities (including Minneapolis and St. Paul) don’t recycle them. This is your chance to see that those pots stacked in your garage become landscape lumber instead of landfill fodder. C’mon green gardeners! Do your part!

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 20th, 2007 at 2:49 pm and is filed under Books + Resources, Weekend to-dos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

9 Responses to "Recycle those garden pots"

Beaglz says:

September 20th, 2007 at 4:17 pm

Thanks for the tip! Every year, I go through the guilt of filling the trash with the “disposable” pots. Is something like this available in the spring as well? All those flats & cell-packs…

Connie Nelson says:

September 20th, 2007 at 4:51 pm

Beaglz,
The plant pot recycling program, which is sponsored by the Minnesota Nursery and Landscape Association, is only in its second year. This year, there also was a drop-off date in spring, but I don’t know if there will be one next spring. So, if you have a chance, do it this year.

Peter Hoh says:

September 20th, 2007 at 6:39 pm

I could be wrong, but I don’t think that cell packs (the really thin plastic, multi-part containers) are accepted by this program.

trudy says:

September 21st, 2007 at 2:46 am

How come those seedlings and other plants aren’t being grown in those biodegradable pressed cardboard(?) containers?

deb w says:

September 21st, 2007 at 6:48 am

Several years back (4 or 5) I bought some plants that were growing in papercup-like containers, the containers after traveling, being watered, and a few butterfingered customers were not holding up very well. I tend to buy plants in the heavier round pots so I can recycle them either for things I plant from seed or back to the recyclers. The thin cell packs do not hold up at all for me.

trudy says:

September 21st, 2007 at 8:55 am

Hi, Deb,

The containers I mean are sturdier than paper-cup like. I just tried to find a photo on the web and couldn’t. They were kind of ubiquitous when I lived in California, maybe they are local to the garden places there. Think of cardboard egg carton material, only 6-8 times thicker. They do eventually degrade, so I would say they’d hold up a year or two in a nursery. I never saw one smaller than about a 1-2 gallon size, so there would not be a lot of customers picking them up.

deb w says:

September 24th, 2007 at 1:42 pm

I do remember the same sort of paperboard pots on the 3 and 5 gallon shrubs and plants, but haven’t seen anything in them for years. Once again, we have to answer th age old paper or plastic question. I guess the answer has been provided for us: plastic.

Betsy says:

September 24th, 2007 at 5:18 pm

Hi Deb,

I’m doing some research on the problem of plastic nursery pots adding to the volume of garbage in our landfills. Do you know where I could go to find out how much $$ is spent on the plastic pots used to deliver the plants to American consumers?

deb w says:

September 25th, 2007 at 5:59 am

Not a clue. My only guess would be to get the price from a greenhouse supply and multipy by how many plants are bought.
Do you suppose someone could come up with a cornstarch or soybean biodegradable pot like the packing foamies but more durable?

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