In This Issue
Haskins are buying Forest Lodge Garden Centre
Barton Grange and Fron Goch win top GCA Awards
GCA Conference raises £12,000 for Greenfingers
Your'e on the brink of a huge revolution Sir Tim Smit tells GCA delegates
Pictures from GCA Conference themed-party night
Garden centres receive top awards at GCA conference
AMES has ambitious targets in 2020
Klondyke Group acquire Garden Wise Plant and Garden Centre, Dumfries
GCA appoints two new members to team of inspectors
Great start to January sales in garden centres
Mike Burks to take over as GCA Chairman for 2020/21
Rising Stars prepare for finale at GCA Conference
Westland puts £500k behind Peckish radio and press ads
Tributes to John Ashley as Sue Allen takes over Greenfingers Charity chair
HTA pushes councils to pick up plant pots at kerbside
David Domoney named as Evergreen Garden Care brand ambassador
Hillier unveils plans for 'greatest ever' Chelsea exhibit
New ERP system boosts efficiency and planning at Wyevale Nurseries
Festive shoppers raise funds…to the tune of £2500
Get your own copy of GTN Xtra
Laurence Flatman dies
Snowdrop Festival gets under way in Scotland
Greening urban areas is priority for more Britain in Bloom entrants
Just days to go to beat scholarship funding deadline...
The best of last week's
Hayes Garden World announce sad passing of Elizabeth Hayes
Caulders buys Loch Lomond Homes & Gardens
Great start to the New Year, reports GTN Bestsellers
£1.5million investment in Kelkay's expansion
Planners approve major project at Hillier's Newbury site
Drive to Monte Carlo in an old banger to FUNdraise for Greenfingers
Garden Centre Photo Tours
Bestsellers Top 50 charts every week
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HTA pushes councils to pick up plant pots at kerbside

As part of the next phase of the industry-driven recyclable plant pot campaign, the Horticultural Trades Association (HTA) is to urge local authorities to collect recyclable plant pots in their kerbside collections.

 

The HTA wants member businesses to contact their local council to strongly encourage them to commit to collecting and recycling non-black plant pots. As well as providing members with a template letter, the HTA will write to the Local Government Association, the national membership body for local authorities, highlighting the issue and stressing the need for consistency on collection.

 

This follows the recent publication by recycling charity RECOUP of their 2019 ‘Household Plastics Collections Survey’ which shows that 10% of councils state that they collect plant pots as part of their household kerbside collections. This amounts to 40 councils, an increase on previous estimates.

 

RECOUP’s ‘Plastic Packaging in Horticulture - Recyclability By Design’ report provides the technical assurance that recyclable pots are fully recyclable by local authorities. This document outlines that there is a clear demand among plastic reprocessors for non-black polypropylene, from which the recyclable pots are made, and concerns over pot contamination should not present any issues if the pots are emptied by the consumer. There is an increasing desire amongst consumers, especially gardeners, to ‘do the right thing’ and they are looking to their local councils to help them achieve this.

 

HTA director of policy and communications James Clark said: “While it is encouraging to see the number of local authorities collecting recyclable plant pots from the kerbside has increased, there is clearly more work to be done. There is no reason why all local councils could not collect recyclable pots and we are calling on HTA member businesses to contact their local councillors to highlight the issue and ask them to act now. This is part of our wider strategy to engage with local authorities and waste management companies to close the loop, ensuring that an estimated 8,000 tonnes of pots are recycled from the kerbside.”

 

Stuart Foster, CEO of RECOUP, adds: “The positive response to our question on plant pot collection in our recent Household Plastics Collection Survey means that we are starting to gather more detailed information from local councils.  RECOUP have 30 years’ experience of working across the whole plastics resource and packaging industry and we are now being approached by industries, such as the garden sector, keen to explore how they can help create a fully circular and resource-efficient economy, underpinned by effective producer and consumer responsibility.”

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Isobel Barnes
Several garden centres including Ayletts in St Albans and Vanstones at Codicote, Hdrts have big container where customers can either deposit or take pots. It seems to me this is quite a cost effective way of dealing with problem.
Isobel Barnes Director of Making Life Beautiful CIC.