Most plant and seedling pots are made of polypropylene, plastic ID 5, and Mitre 10 sells over 11 million every year to their customers. The pots are recyclable, but most councils don’t accept them in kerbside recycling because they’re often contaminated with dirt.
Pot Recycle is a practical solution Mitre 10 is trialing that could stop these pots ending up in landfill and reduce the amount of new plastic being made.
"Customers can return clean plant/seedling pots and labels made of plastic ID 5 to participating stores. The pots are then shredded by their recycling partners, Pact Group and Recycling Group, and remolded into new pots by our trade partner, Zealandia Horticulture."
Why is washing so important?
"Our recyclers need the pots to be clean because their machines can’t process dirty pots. The purpose of the trial is to understand the quality of the material we’ll be sending to our recycling partners. If they receive too many dirty pots, the programme won’t roll out nationally. If dirt or rubbish is mixed in with the ID 5 plastic, the whole lot has to go to landfill, which defeats the purpose of the programme.
Which stores are part of the Pot Recycle trial?
- Mitre 10 MEGA Henderson
- Mitre 10 MEGA Tauranga
- Mitre 10 MEGA New Plymouth
What plastics can I clean and return to Pot Recycle trial store?
The trial accepts plant and seedlings pots and plant labels identified as plastics 1, 2 or 5. Currently we cannot accept black poly plant bags or pots that don’t have a plastic ID number. The trial only covers household/residential use too – we can’t manage commercial quantities."
The grey Zealandia Horticulture pot
Currently Zealandia Horticulture are using shred from postproduction pots within their production and recycled post consumed waste in their recycled grey pots. Moving forward, they will use the shredded Pot Recycle plastic pots that you return.
How is Mitre 10 solving the problem of unidentifiable plastics pots?
"We have introduced Sustainable Packaging Guidelines and we’re working closely with our trade partners to ensure all plant and seedling pots stocked in our garden centres include the correct plastic ID code."
For more information: 
Mitre 10
Julie Roberts, Sustainability Manager
Email: julie.roberts@mitre10.co.nz
www.mitre10.co.nz.