Recycling plastics from the garden

By Anne Wharton

I have just read a very useful article by Zero Waste SA on recycling plastics from the garden.  Rigid plastics are recyclable in your recycling bin.  Simply clean plastic plant pots, seedling trays and containers of any soil and then place them in the recycling bin.  They can be stacked inside one another to reduce the space they take up in your bin.

Plastic tags with planting information are too small to be captured during the sorting process at the Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) so cannot be placed loose in the recycling bin.  However, these tags can be recycled by leaving them attached to the plastic pot or placing in a plastic milk bottle (must be HDPE, no. 2 plastic).  In fact all small, rigid plastic tags and lids can be recycled if placed into a plastic milk bottle.  Once the bottle is full of lids and tags, it can be placed in the recycling bin with a lid on.  Sorters at the MRF will see the lids and tags in the bottle and recycle these with mixed plastics.

Soft plastics however are not recyclable in your recycling bin, e.g. all plastic bags that have had soil, compost or fertiliser in them, and must be placed in your waste bin.  But if you buy Jeffries products, these can be taken back to the supplier and will be recycled by Jeffries.