The use of and disposal of plastics is rapidly becoming one of the most important environmental concerns of our time. While gardening brings many great benefits to the ecosystem, we know many of our customers are concerned about what to do with plastic plant pots and we are often asked about recycling.
We are delighted to announce that kerbside recyclable pots are now available from Hillier Garden Centres. These have been introduced by our own Hillier Nurseries in Hampshire in an industry first and will be easily identified by their taupe colour, instead of black. More than 250,000 plants have already been potted into taupe pots on our nurseries, so customers can expect to see the volume of these in centres steadily increasing. These will be used for Hillier Nurseries vast range, which includes perennials, shrubs, ferns, grasses and trees for your garden.
Reducing plastic use is an issue that the horticultural industry is coming together on. A group of 10 UK growers are replacing black pots with recyclable taupe ones and Hillier Nurseries is the first to put this into action. The use of taupe combats the recycling challenging presented by black pots. While 76% of local authorities collect pots, tubs and trays as part of their kerbside recycling schemes, very few collect black plants pots. This is because the pots contain carbon black pigment, which absorbs Infra-Red from detection systems and hinders recycling. The new taupe pots use a carbon black pigment-free polypropylene to solve this problem.
Chris Francis, Hillier Garden Centre and Wholesale Nurseries Director, commented: “This is a real breakthrough in the industry. We are delighted to be leading the way as the first UK nursery to commercially use the new taupe recyclable pot, bringing our customers an environmental innovation that we know is important to them. Hillier has always been a pioneer within horticulture and this introduction will have a considerable impact as we forge ahead towards finding sustainable solutions to this global issue.”
