Greener gardening - marine plastic pots

The problem of marine pollution is one that we’re increasingly aware of, with an estimated 8 to 10 million tons of plastic entering the ocean each year.  This man-made material harms marine life, disrupts ecosystems and enters the food chain.

There are a number of businesses trying to reduce this environmental damage by collecting and reusing the marine waste found on our shores.  They’re crafting discarded ropes, nets, boxes and rubbish into useful, sturdy and attractive products for the garden and the home, and we can support this work by choosing their recycled plastic pots for our plants.

Ocean Plastic Pots is one of the leaders in this field – founder Ally Mitchell worked as a diver in the North Sea and witnessed first hand the impact of plastic in our waters.  He’s created a range of different sized plant pots and kitchen knives in blue, yellow or orange made from rope and net collected from Scottish beaches.

Another Scottish company, POTR, has launched the world’s first fully traceable recycled marine plastic pot.  Waste nets are collected and sorted in Cornwall, pelletised in Dumfries, transformed into recycled sheets in Middlesbrough, and finally die-cut and assembled in Edinburgh.  There’s a QR code on each pack which can be scanned to find out when and where the abandoned fishing net was collected, the volume of waste in that batch, and who sorted it.  Every pot contributes 4% of profits to ongoing clean-up efforts.

Meanwhile Dutch business elho has a range of designer pots for houseplants in marbled blue and green.  Each one is a unique colour because of its make up, and they’re also 100% recyclable; there are special elho recycling bins at Dobbies stores, where you can deposit your unwanted plastic pots and prevent further plastic waste ending up in landfill - or in the sea.