Plastic in Horticulture

Last month I shared an infographic on Instagram about tackling plastic in horticulture after listening to Sian Sutherland talk to Jamie Laing on the Private parts podcast. Sian is the co-founder of A Plastic Planet, a global campaign organisation with a goal to inspire the world to turn off the plastic tap. I thought it was important to expand on the topic and to set out what I am doing in my business, Harriet Plants, to tackle the plastic issue.

Of course, the plastic problem is way bigger than horticulture. It affects nearly every industry and it needs industrial change. Did you know that globally we produce 1 billion plastic water bottles every MINUTE. Every minute we create a problem that will still be causing issues for future generations, in many centuries to come. The breakdown of plastic is a ticking time bomb. The research into micro plastics is truly horrifying. From the chemicals effecting our fertility to micro plastics now being found in our blood. Shockingly a newborn baby is born with significantly higher micro plastics in their poo then an average adult due to the transfer of micro-plastics in the placenta. Plastic is everywhere. It is in our food chain and it is now in us. It is shocking and it has to change. As Sian points out, we often say we need to make these changes to ‘save the planet’ but the reality is that the planet will survive, it will be us that won’t be here if we don’t significantly change how we operate.

We all need to do our part, it’s true, but we really need businesses to change if we have any hope of making a significant difference. To do that we need to ask the difficult questions, dig beneath the surface and vote with our money.

So here is what Harriet Plants do to tackle the plastic problem in our business:

1)    Grow from seed/ Propagate

Did you know that the majority of house plants sold in the UK are imported and wrapped individually in plastic. The trolleys the plants arrive in are also wrapped in single use plastic. Many shops remove this plastic packaging so the customer doesn’t see it and sometimes they even go as far as to wrap the plants in brown paper to appeal to the eco-conscious. Effectively doubling the waste attached to each plant sold. By growing from seed or propagating from mother plants, Harriet’s Plants significantly reduces the amount of plastic coming into the business.
Don’t get me wrong, ofcourse I still have small amounts of single use plastic coming into my business but it is significantly reduced. I am also in constant conversations with my suppliers, mainly about sellotape on boxes, because lets be honest, sellotape isn’t necessary.

 2)    Plastic free packaging

 As I grow the plants right here in the UK, they don’t come to me in plastic so I ensure that they don’t come to you in plastic too. My packaging is eco-friendly and sustainable and heres why;

I currently reuse cardboard boxes from other local businesses. This is another topic up for discussion in the future as the cardboard box industry is far from sustainable.

I use 100% biodegradable/compostable/dissolvable potato starch pellets to help secure the plants in place during their postal journey. These can just be placed in water and left to dissolve or put in your compost heap to degrade when it rains. They can also be reused over and over again.

The care cards are printed on recycled and recycable card with eco-friendly ink. If you cut this up into small pieces, this to can be placed in your compost bin if you have one.

The Fragile tape used on the boxes is compostable and recyclable so can go straight into your local recycling scheme.

3)    Reuse and Recycle

Not all plastic can be recycled. If its coloured or printed on then it cannot be recycled. Only 9% of the plastic that can be recycled actually is. In the UK instead of dealing with our waste we ship it to other countries. In horticulture specifically it is estimated that 500 million plant pots are used in Britain each year, while the majority can be recycled, very few are.  I therefore use other businesses used plant pots within the greenhouse and the rest is grown in coir pots, which are plastic free.

 4)     Spread awareness

I use my platform at Harriet’s Plants to spread awareness about the issues I care about. Sustainability is at the core of my business. I appreciate that some of the stats I give are hard to stomach and maybe not what you expect to read from a plant grower but I believe change is needed and the best way to make that happen is to spread awareness of the real problems we face. Please share anything that resonates with you and even better, I urge you to write to your MP to ban exporting plastic waste to other countries. Our waste needs to be our problem. Wouldn’t it be a much better solution for the government to address that we have a waste problem and make it a priority to fix the issue? By sending plastic waste to developing countries we’re hiding the dust under the rug and that rug will be the death of us. This pollutes our oceans where it is broken down into micro plastics that then get into our food supply. We need significant change and I believe we won’t do that until the vast majority of people can physically see the problem. Our current recycling schemes, unfortunately, just aren’t good enough.

Finally, the best possible thing to do, as with all problems is to get creative. Help find the solution, rather than be part of the problem. In horticulture terms that means finding alternatives to plastic in your garden and home. A toilet roll will help grow the seedling. A glass jar is great to propagate with. A coffee cup can be a great plant pot. The possibilities really are endless. Every time you go to use a plastic product in your garden have a think of what else you may be able to use to solve the problem. We survived for centuries without plastic but a lot of the knowledge is lost, we can find it again or we can do one better. Invent. There is amazing innovation happening, new materials are being made, new technologies. There is hope. It is not all doom and gloom we just need to think of other ways to help solve the plastic problem. This is a global problem and it needs to be solved with creativity and innovation.

Get creative like your life depends on it, because it really does.

Here are some ways that Harriet’s Plants is trying to help in the fight against plastic. It is impossible to keep up with every new technological development in real time. So if you come across some research that would help solve the problem of plastic in horticulture then I am all ears, let’s talk and together let’s make a difference.

Useful links:

https://aplasticplanet.com/

https://shows.acast.com/privateparts/episodes/276-why-plastic-recycling-doesnt-work-with-sian-sutherland-p