The retail horticultural industry needs to get its act together on plastic waste - Yorkshire Post Letters

The retail horticultural industry, which sells plants and premix specialist blended compost, through retail outlets such as garden centres, massive DIY sheds and discount stores, is by the way it operates, one of the worst contributors of plastic pollution, from plastic pots to plastic carrying trays and compost in plastic bags.

The majority of plants are grown in plastic pots, which, granted, can be reused, but in reality how many are actually reused?

Gardeners who grow their own plants from seed or cuttings are unlikely to grow young plants in big pots, as these plants need to be potted up in stages, as excess compost in a pot will start to go stagnant and this is shown by the Liverwort weed on the surface of the compost.

The alternative is that plants could be grown in a more environmentally way in clay pots or peat pots, and the vast volume of compost bought is in the spring, could be packaged in heavy duty paper sacks (used for the distribution of potatoes) or hessian sacks which can be recycled a couple of times and when it starts to break up can be put on the compost heap.

In the 1950s and 1960s this is how plants were grown but the non biodegradable plastic pots are cheaper.

I am sure that gardeners would pay a little more for a plant if it was sold in a more sustainable method?

The plastic carrying trays are mostly black (more white ones are now coming into the distribution chain) and they are supposed to be used several times over but again in reality because when plants are watered to keep them healthy it makes them heavy and the cheap plastic trays splits, so more often than not they are single usage.

Customers should look in production glasshouses, attached to reputable garden centres and storage yards where they will see the large quantities of black plastic trays in a skip.

What a waste of a product produced from oil.

The horticultural industry, which produces flowers for retailing in the above mentioned retail outlets, needs to get its act together; starting with the nurseryman/growers in the Netherlands and in Britain at production areas like Dunswell in East Yorkshire, Spalding in Lincolnshire and near Eastbourne in East Sussex where the main wholesale growers are located.

Customers should boycott these retail garden centres for buying plants in plastic pots which are stood in plastic trays.

When they go to use the garden centre cafe, which from my experience serves excellent quality food, they should see the garden centre manager and ask why they are selling plants in plastic pots?

The only way that this situation will change is if garden centre managers, who have buying powers, contact their growers and ask for changes in the way plants are grown and presented for retail sales.

The trade body, Horticultural Trades Association, is making no progress in reducing the use of plastic in the industry it represents.

If the government is banning single use plastic cutlery then they need to look at Horticultural retailing.