Missouri Botanical Garden kicks off plastic recycling event

The Missouri Botanical Garden's Plastic Pot Recycling begins Apr. 2 and will be open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Sept. 30 at the Monsanto Center at the Missouri Botanical Garden (Mobot).

 

Mobot operates the most extensive public garden recycling program in the nation. With the addition of 138,000 pounds of horticultural waste in 2010, the Garden’s Plastic Pot Recycling Program has saved over 980,000 pounds of plastic garden pots, cell packs and plant trays from landfills to date. The goal for 2011 is to recycle over one-million pounds; diverting materials from local landfills since the program started in 1998.

 

“The public interest for recycling garden pots and trays is astonishing,” said program founder and organizer Steven Cline, manager of the Garden’s William T. Kemper Center for Home Gardening. “Each year that we offer this program, the response is stronger and we are proud to share this with our retail garden center friends who support the environmental effort.”

 

Horticulture plastic will be accepted at the garden’s main collection facility located at the west parking lot of the Monsanto Center, 4500 Shaw Blvd. at the corner of Vandeventer. Twelve area garden centers will serve as satellite collection sites in 2011. Bowood Farms, Crabapple Cove Nursery, Garden Heights Nursery, Greenscape Gardens, Hartke Nursery, Rolling Ridge Garden Center, Sherwood’s Forest Nursery and Garden Center, Summer Winds/Timber Creek Nursery, Thies Farm and Greenhouse, University Gardens and new this year; Hillermann’s Nursery & Florist and Waldbert & Sons Garden Center. Each satellite collection site will collect horticultural plastic during their normal business hours from Apr. 2 through Sept. 30. Visit www.plasticpotrecycling.org for specific location and contact information.

 

Horticultural plastic accepted includes cell packs, trays, pots of all sizes and hanging baskets. Please shake soil and rocks out of containers and remove all metal hangers, rings or other foreign materials. Plastic bags or clay pots will not be accepted. Separate #6 plastic cell packs and trays from #2 and #5 plastic pots into the recycling trailers. Garden edging, plastic sheeting materials and food plastic will not be accepted.

 

Plastic is granulated on-site into chips that are easily transported for recycling. These chips are sold to manufacturers for converting into garden pots, lumber, pallets and a variety of other usable products. The Missouri Botanical Garden’s role is to reduce as much of this material headed to landfills as possible and to find an alternative for its use by diverting it back into other products.