GW / Gove Plant Pot Crusade

@Mike Allen , what about donating them to your local charity shops. This would stop a lot of people going out buying new ones.

 

Like you @shiney I never throw pots away and have maybe not quite as many as you but not far off it! I too reuse the compost bags for all sorts including for sticks as kindling......a lot of kindling produced post gales recently.
I take pots from friends who have unwanted ones and used a huge amount when doing my wee charity plant sales.
3 people during the sales actually wanted pots and so I sold them a few for pennies. Our neighbours who run a cat sanctuary regularly go to car boot sales and told me people buy old plastic pots at them surprisingly. If I had spare I'd advertise them for free on the likes of Gumtree.

 

No sooner is tax mentioned and the government are onto it

Meeting to discuss taxing incineration for energy from waste held yesterday

Gove to attend strategy meeting as tax idea surfaces - letsrecycle.com

 

I wonder if more nurseries will offer the same service ? Its a far greener option to reuse than to recycle. Something that the article seemed to miss - focusing on taupe pots and recycling instead.​

 

Youre probably right. Our local small nursery takes in plant pots and re-uses them himself but he doesn't do this proactively. If the chains offered a similar service it could get them a free bit of advertising on GW

 

I wonder how many people actually throw their pots away as everyone I know has piles of them stacked up in sheds and greenhouses

 

While I am all for saving the planet, I can't help feeling some measures we are taking are somewhat a waste of time with what is going on in the likes of China who are building massive new coal fired power stations. We all, unfortunately, live on the same planet and while laudable in some instances our efforts at reducing pollution are a mere Bagatelle. I'm somewhat skeptical when politicians start on a crusade , it usually is a precursor for a new tax. As I have mentioned in the past I unfortunately had to learn some facts about wind turbines when helping to stop a completely inappropriate "wind farm" being built, the case went to the reporter and thankfully we won.Green energy my aunt fanny. I don't have up to date information on the most modern turbines which are being sited out at sea. Hopefully they are not quite such a con.
We gardeners seem to be a soft target. Told we must stop using peat and peat based composts when in the likes of Ireland they are burning millions of tonnes of it to produce electricity.
They proudly announced they had cut the amount burnt from 6 million to below 3.8 million tonnes that is still 1 hell of a lot of peat going up in smoke or more correctly producing greenhouses gases in the process!

 

As far as I can see no-one has mentioned the environmental impact of making clay pots. Quarries to dig out the clay, furnaces to fire it, vehicles to move the stuff around. And what about labels? One use white plastic?

 

Good point @Palustris . We are continually being badgered to get the most up to date efficient boiler but how much fuel/raw materials are being used to make the boiler and is there any actual saving? This is exactly the point about wind turbines. The cost to the environment building/shipping and erecting them plus infrastructure far outweighs the green energy produced during turbines lifespan of guessed at 25 years even if they ran at 100% capacity for the whole of their lifespan.

 

Since this piece of land is full of bits of crockery from Bronze Age to yesterday, the biodegradability of pottery is also an issue.
Don't get me started on Inland Wind Turbines and the Power lines from them. GRRRRRRRRRR!

 

We do our bit, 99% of our furniture is second hand (AKA antique/collectable), we have quite a few clothes bought from secondhand shops around 25 years ago, but some of those have now finally worn out, but we still go to jumble sales (incl last Saturday) and use charity shops, car boot sales and ebay.