May 20, 2011, Milton, Ont. — Garden centres across the country are
coming together to participate in the second annual National Plastic
Recycling Event, June 25 to July 4.
May 20, 2011, Milton, Ont. — Garden centres across the country are coming together to participate in the second annual National Plastic Recycling Event, June 25 to July 4.
Led by the Canadian Nursery Landscape Association (CNLA) and its member associations, the event is designed to offer gardeners an environmentally responsible way to dispose of their plastic plant pots, plant packs, and plastic trays.
The program began as a Landscape Ontario initiative, but went national for the first time last year. On a shoestring budget, all the work was volunteered by participating garden centres and recycling partners, the program was an instant success, and more than 53,000 pounds of recyclable garden plastic was collected.
This year, dozens of new participants have joined, giving gardeners even more places to deposit their flowerpots and trays, instead of in the trash.
Additional garden centres are pledging support every day. Horticultural suppliers, such as Myers Lawn and Garden Group, and non-profit organizations, including CleanFarms™ (a non-profit industry stewardship organization that manages agricultural waste and packaging), are working on ways to assist garden centres and nurseries in the stewardship of garden plastics.
”It’s a difficult problem,” says Bill Hardy, CNLA’s Environment Chair. “The environmental horticulture industry – the garden industry – works every day to improve the environment by adding plants and trees to the spaces in which we live. Gardening and landscaping have positive effects on the air we breathe, the quality of our water and on climate change. Now we need to find better ways to get those plants from the nursery to private and public green spaces without creating undue waste. The recycling initiative is one step toward the goal of finding eco-friendly alternatives to plastics.”
To find out which garden centres in your area are participating in the initiative, visit canadanursery.com and click on “National Plastics Recycling Event” for a map.
Print this page
