PLANT nursery, West Kington Nurseries, swaps plastic pots for compostable to reduce plastic waste.

The Chippenham nursery has joined a major national garden centre chain in trialling a biodegradable pot based on peat and wood pulp with their plants last week. Within the past week 36 garden centres have received 1000 plants each in the new pots and so far the response from customers has been very positive.

West Kington Nurseries manager Mark Jackson said: “Using these pots is a response to the drive to reduce plastic use. As a company we are committed to reducing the use of plastic where possible. Obviously a plant is a very natural product and it seems wrong to be wrapping it in plastic.”

The plant roots into the pot, so both can be planted into the ground when it has grown to the required size and the pot will decompose as it roots. In the right conditions, the new pots are estimated to take around a month to fully decompose, whilst the plastic pot can take up to 1000 years to achieve the same end. In a nursery and retail environment the pot will not prematurely decompose as it is allowed to dry out between watering sessions.

They cost three times as much as the standard plastic pot and this is absorbed by the end consumer price, but with current attitudes towards plastic and its harm on the environment, gardeners seem happy to accept the increase.

According to Which? Gardening, it is estimated that 500 million plastic plant plots are in circulation each year. There are recycling issues with black plastics because recycling facilities sort plastics by reflecting light off them and black absorbs the light.

Many plant plots are black as it stops light getting to the roots of the plants which can cause growing problems.

According to the waste and resources action programme (WRAP) 73 per cent of local authorities do accept rigid plastic packaging but many still reject plastic flower pots because they may contain soil and other organics which contaminate the loads.

West Kington Nurseries has been growing over 800 varieties of perennials, trees and shrubs for more than 30 years, using approximately 1.5 million plastic pots a year, but this is the first time a non-plastic pot has been used on a large scale.