Recycling nursery pots

One of the downsides to being a plant-a-holic is not knowing what to do with all those empty plastic nursery pots that stack up over time. Most cities or counties won’t accept plastic nursery pots in its curbside recycling program. But many nurseries do!  (Edit – Feb. 12, 2009 – starting March 30, 2009, city of Seattle residents will be allowed to toss plastic nursery pots in curb-side recycling bins.)

Don’t toss them in the trash. Recycled agricultural plastics are used to make truck bed liners, black plastic landscape supplies, drain pipe, plastic lumber for benches, posts and pilings, pallets, automotive components, tool handles and black trash bags.

If you’re a regular Ecoyards maintenance customer, we’ll pick them up for you at no charge. Just set them out the next time we are scheduled to visit, and we’ll recycle them for you. We try to reuse the nursery pots, where possible, and have teamed up with volunteers from the Longfellow Creek Community Garden and the Longfellow P-Patch, the Community Harvest of Southwest Seattle and the West Seattle Edible Garden Fair.  They plan to reuse the pots for several community gardening projects in West Seattle.

Check the following resources to see which nurseries take what. Make sure they are empty, clean, unbroken nursery pots. For example, West Seattle Nursery, one of Ecoyards’ favorite local retail nurseries, accepts 1-gallon pots or larger. Flowerworld Nursery in Maltby takes pots of all sizes.

The Washington State Nursery & Landscape Association provides a list of about a dozen nurseries in King County that take pots.

Here’s a list put together by Seattle Public Utilities and Resources (PDF), a nonprofit environmental group  works with cities and farmers to recycle agriculture plastic and other items.

If you live in Clark County, click here for a list of nurseries that will recycle pots.