It’s time to recycle. Plant shopping is fun, and getting the plants in the ground is satisfying. But then there are all the leftover plastic pots, cell packs and plastic trays to deal with. More garden centres are ready to help with recycling all that plastic.
Loblaws has been a leader in accepting the return of plastic garden containers (including those it doesn’t sell) at its garden centres (including its Valu-Mart stores).
The Canadian Nursery Landscape Association (CNLA) and its member associations run the annual National Plastic Recycling Event. In 2012, it’s June 22 to July 1. The event in 2011 collected more than 76,000 pounds of recyclable garden plastic, up from 53,000 in 2010. As new participants join, gardeners have more places to deposit their flowerpots and trays for recycling, instead of leaving them in the trash. To find out which centres are participating, check the map on the CNLA site.
Bill Hardy, CNLA’s Environment Chair, says: “The environmental horticulture industry — the garden industry — works every day to improve the environment by adding plants and trees to the spaces in which we live. Gardening and landscaping have positive effects on the air we breathe, the quality of our water and on climate change. Now we need to find better ways to get those plants from the nursery to private and public green spaces without creating undue waste. The recycling initiative is one step toward the goal of finding eco-friendly alternatives to plastics.”
