May 19th, 2022

We garden for a plethora of purposes. You may want to connect with our natural world, build a beautiful yard, produce sustenance, provide habitat for plants and animals, sell native plants to restore degraded habitat, or perhaps see a leafcutter bee buzzing around some bee balm. Whatever the reason, gardening is a wonderful pastime that has been around since our hunter gatherer ancestors started planting crops around 12,000 years ago—gardening is in our DNA. 

In many ways today’s gardening practices look quite different from our ancestor’s primitive plots of crops— for one, they did not have access to plastic. According to a 2004 study from Penn State University, plant pots, flats, and cell packs use up to 320 million pounds of plastic per year. This number is likely even higher today because the home gardening industry’s average annual sales revenue has more than doubled since 2004. More sales means nurseries consume even more plastic. According to the USDA, in 2009, 4 billion container/plant units were produced by the container crop industry using a total of 1.66 billion pounds of plastic. This number doesn’t count all the other plastics used in the nursery industry, including the plastic sheets used to cover greenhouses (which often have to be replaced every year), plastic trays and containers, plastic markers used to identify the plants, plastic-coated pesticides and fertilizers, and so much more. It’s no exaggeration to say that in total nurseries and gardeners are using TON of plastic. ​

---

Although we will be predominantly focusing on nurseries in this post, home-gardeners interested in reducing their plastic can peruse our plastic alternative graphic below. 

Many Asheville business owners have taken a hard look at their waste and come up with creative ways to reduce it. I spoke with Bill Jones, the founder and president of Carolina Native Nursery in Burnsville, about the steps he’s taken to reduce waste and prioritize the environment in his purchasing decisions. Though the plant nursery business has many specialized concerns, Bill’s experience and decision-making process can apply to many types of businesses. 

Looking for reuse options was their first strategy, and it helped them successfully reduce a huge portion of the nursery’s plastic waste AND save a ton of money.  For example, Carolina Native reuses their cold frame plastic covers, which are designed to be single use. By reusing these sheets for up to 3 years in a row, Carolina Native is not only reducing a huge portion of their plastic waste but saving a gargantuan sum of money. The nursery has 60 cold frames that require coverings. Last year they were able to reuse 40 covers, which cost $120 each. According to Bill, this practice has saved the nursery an estimated $38,000 over the years. If a nursery with 60 greenhouses can reuse their plastic covers for 3 years in a row for 12 years, they’ll spend $28,800 instead of $86,400. Moreover, for 60 greenhouses that are average sized (30ft wide by 96 ft long), a nursery would save approximately 1.3 million square feet of plastic from going to the landfill… that’s a lot of plastic! ​

---

The next strategy Bill employed was to seek out plastic alternatives. It got tricky though. Chatting with Bill, I discovered that waste from pots is more complicated than simply always choosing the most sustainable option. Carolina Native uses compostable pots whenever possible, but they don’t work for larger plants because the biodegradable pots don’t last long enough to support long-term growth. Bill noted that compostable pots work well for perennials, smaller plants for selling (which will be quickly planted), and tomatoes. To be clear, compostable pots are a great option for home gardeners who won’t leave those plants in their pots for too long. For larger plants, Carolina Native uses recycled plastic pots. They also sought alternatives for pesticides, which are full of plastics. They introduced predatory mites into their five greenhouses to address the issue of western flower thrips, which are pests that damage and kill plants. Using the mites dramatically reduces the nursery’s need for pesticides. Also, they don’t use perlite or vermiculite, both of which are nonrenewable resources that require mining and release greenhouse gases in their production.

Recycling also plays a big role in their waste reduction strategies. Carolina Native inventoried everything they use in an audit process similar to the waste audit we recommended. This allowed them to map out their full waste footprint and to make decisions about what kinds of waste they could avoid. They recycle and reuse everything possible, including wood pallets and the loads of cardboard that is shipped with the plants. However, reuse and recycling doesn’t work in every situation. Unfortunately they cannot accept donated pots from the community because of the risk of pathogens and the labor costs it would require to sufficiently sanitize the pots. 

---

“We do everything we can within the constraints of our industry,” Bill told me.  

Plastic alternatives can be more expensive. For businesses, this may force a strategic choice. However, home gardeners may have more freedom in their budgets to make plastic alternatives a priority. Plus, home gardeners can utilize low-waste retail products or gardening practices that aren’t cost-effective or effective at the scale a business might need.

Whether you're gardening to sell native plants, to harvest delicious fresh tomatoes for your spring salad, or to watch your black-eyed Susans flourish, reflecting on your plastic use, reducing your waste, and looking for plastic alternatives can grow your activity into a flourishing eco-friendly endeavor. 

---

By Livia Charles, Sustainability Coordinator at Asheville GreenWorks ​