Plastic Plant pots - recycled

I would like to know of anyway I can recycle plastic plant pots, as I have loads?

I don't want them to go 'into' a landfill site.

I teach in a school where we do gardening with pupils. If your pots are cean and small 3 or 4 inch I imagine your local school would love them. Not the broken snail hotel carrier bags of tatty plastic which is old and brittle though!

Advertise your plastic pots 'on offer' for free on 'Freecycle'. 

Gardeners/allotmenters local to your postcode will snap them up...with pleasure!

I also have loads of pots to give away, my garage is bursting with them.

I'm in Leighton Buzzard Beds, I found a Freecycle here, thanks to Lacewing.

Sorry for late reply but I wasn't sent an email response and busy at work but thank you all for your replys.

I am on my local Freecycle and will advertise there.

By the way I'm in Basingstoke, Hampshire...

i planted my runner beans in the green house about 4 weeks ago and no sign of any seedlings coning up any idears as to why

@rosymary if you ask your question in fruit and veg you will get more replies. 

rosymary wrote (see)

i planted my runner beans in the green house about 4 weeks ago and no sign of any seedlings coning up any idears as to why

Too wet and cold-if they had come though it will have been to early in any case-tip a couple of pots out you will either have a squishy mess or a rooting bean.

There is plenty of time to resow.

Some of the big garden centre chains that used to offer a pot recycling facility have now withdrawn it because of the difficulty in separating out all the different plastics, such as polyethylene , polypropylene,  polyvinyl chloride (PVC) as they can't all be mixed together. Some can't be recycled at all. The bulk plastic needs to be sorted at a specialist recycling plant. PVC sinks, the others float so have to be sorted by hand. I have seen one of these plants, with a big water bath and  conveyor belt where plastics are sorted. What a job!! 

I suspect that a lot of it is shipped to the Middle / Far East for recycling, and I fear that some of it is then landfilled, but I can't be sure. 

At home I try to separate out my plastics into those that can and can't be recycled.   OH just told me off for putting plastic packaging from bacon in the recycle bin. It should go in the black landfill bin!

You would expect horticulturalists to have some basic awareness of environmental issues.  Horticulture seems to be lagging behind every other industry.

For an industry to sell its products (plants) in packaging that cannot readily be recyled is outrageous in these times.

I used to work in the Confectionery Industry. The fancy see-through plastic on Easter Eggs is not recyclable. Just think how many of those are now on their way to landfill! 

I recently ran out of broken terracotta ‘croc’ to help with drainage whilst potting up some larger plants the other day, so snapped up some plastic ones to use instead. I think this should be ok, although thinking about it now they might biodegrade or leak their chemicals into the potted soil after some amount of time. Anyone got any thoughts on this train of thought.

I think you are worrying about nothing-on that train of thought all plastic pots would leak chemicals into plants broken or not-not a scientist- but- this is sooooo unlikely.

I try and ration myself to only keeping square pots, as they stack so much better in the greenhouse. i did sneak a load of round ones into a skip ( with permission) last year, next morning they'd all gone...someone must want them!

sotongeoff wrote (see)

I think you are worrying about nothing-on that train of thought all plastic pots would leak chemicals into plants broken or not-not a scientist- but- this is sooooo unlikely.

Thanks 'sotongeoff' of course your perfectly correct in what you said in your reply, just a little something that popped into my head as I was typing out my comment. All those plastic pots nobody needs anymore...just wish it was the same with terracotta ones which I use as often as possible. Happy gardening days to you.

I use square pots for pricking out / potting on - they are around 25% more efficient in terms of the volume you can get per unit area. (taught that on a propagation course run by a Peter Thompson. Anyone heard of him?)