Butterflies
Plant Pots
Plant as a verb, not a noun. But verb the noun.
I’ve lost count of how many ways we’re trying to cut down on plastic. Not that it’s many, just that I’m wearing mittens. We’re doing well, avoiding the oily stuff wherever we can and sticking to sustainable, recyclable materials like wood, paper, bamboo and chutney. We’ve ditched plastic bottles, coat hangers, toothbrushes, pegs, yogurt pots and such and such. Now we’re on to our next challenge: replacing our plastic plant pots.
These seem particularly stupid. Here we are giving life to the world, protecting nature, nurturing plants from seed and seedlings and preparing them for the ground, and we do it with one of the most anti-nature substances around. We grow herbs and seedlings in oiled-up black pots, we sit houseplants in fossil-fuelled brown plastic and, if we’re particularly careless, when we plant an outdoor plant from a plastic pot we throw the pot away. Etsy houseplant hipsters, who should really know better, have gone mad for concrete pots despite concrete being one of the most polluting materials we have. Even terracotta pots, which are an improvement on plastic and can be used and reused for life, raid our finite supply of clay. Sirs, madams, this must stop. Help is on the way in the form of sustainable, degradable plant pots.
These are a belter of an idea, revealing plastic to be as dumb as it is stupid. We’re talking plant pots made from bamboo pulp, natural latex, grass, seaweed, or recycled paper. We’re also talking pots made from coconut fibre – coir – although given the scarcity of coconuts in the UK it’s likely they take carbon-spewing travel to get here. We can raise babies in these pots and then plant them, in some cases still potted so their roots aren’t disturbed, and watch as the pots degrade in a matter of months. Instead of raiding the earth for materials and filling landfills with non-recyclable plastic, we can just borrow from the earth and then return what we’ve used. This is good. All we need now is a decent closing line and we’ve buttered another fly.
Avoid plastic plant pots
Save resources
Save the actual goddamn world
Photo credit: Sheepy Pie Stock at DeviantArt
Environmentalism
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