Taupe Pots - What's the Big Deal?
Taupe Pots - What's the Big Deal?
If you are a keen gardener you will have loads of plastic pots that you don't know what to do with. They are probably piled up behind your shed or greenhouse and used occasionally to pot up new plants, take cuttings or for seed sowing. You may have tried to recycle them only to find that your local council does not take them because they can't recycle them, and your local garden centre won't take them back either as they can't dispose of them.
So why can't black pots be recycled? The answer is due to the carbon pigment that is used to create the black colour. The black colour can't be seen by the optical recycling equipment as the pigment absorbs light. This means that black pots end up in landfill or are incinerated.
A staggering 500 million pots of plants are sold each year. That's a lot of plastic to be thrown away (or stored in your garden). So what is the garden centre industry doing about it? The answer is that they have created a new colour of pot which they call taupe. This pastel brown coloured pot is different as it can be recycled kerbside due to it being recognised by the recycling machines. You will see more and more of these taupe coloured pots in garden centres as more growers start to use them, so if there is a plant you want in both the black or the taupe pot, pick the taupe one!
