The Missouri Botanical Garden’s 12-year pot recycling program has kept 978,000 pounds of plastic pots, cell pack and trays out of area landfills. This year the Garden collected 128,000 pounds of discarded containers.
The Garden serves as the central collection site from late April through September. It works with 10 retail garden centers in the metro St. Louis area that act as satellite collection sites. Also contributing to the collection effort are other horticultural businesses, including wholesale growers, landscape contractors, ground management professionals and public works departments.
The collected plastic is granulated on-site into chips, which are transported to manufacturers for recycling into other products including lumber, pallets and garden containers. Some of the pots are transported to East Jordan Plastics in Michigan, which manufactures plastic containers and trays.
This year, plastic lumber was produced locally and sold to gardeners to build raised landscape beds. Proceeds from the sale of the lumber will be used to offset some of the costs of future collections.
Pictured: The Missouri Botanical Garden’s 12-year pot recycling program has kept 978,000 pounds of plastic containers out of area landfills.