Do you cringe when you open the garage or shed door and see that pile of empty pots leftover from this year's gardening season? You think about the dumpster only to be troubled by the fact that they might live in the landfill forever. Are there any options?

Plastic pots emerged some fifty years ago and revolutionized the greenhouse industry. You had an inexpensive, durable, lightweight container that easily held together during the growing season and withstood the rigors of shipping.

I date to the time when you left the greenhouse with a handful of bare-root plants wrapped in newspaper or dragging a heavy open wooden flat that was expected to be returned. We might have even paid a deposit on the wooden trays.

Interestingly, a few years ahead of plastic, fiber pots were first used. The hype was that you could plant the pot and all. Today they still have enough problems that they remain just a small part of the industry.

There was/is a conflict between their durability in the greenhouse and their rapid breakdown when planted. If they held up well in the greenhouse they were slow to breakdown in the ground. A second problem I have noticed is that if the pot is planted and not totally covered it acts as a wick to pull moisture away from the plant.

The difficulty fabricating small pots and the cost are also limiting factors. That said, the research is red-hot looking for alternatives to plastic. In the last week I read three articles on the subject. The research targets were newspaper waste, cow poop and chicken feathers.

A more environmentally friendly pot may/will be in the future, but plastic will still dominate the immediate future.

One interesting fact is that the dark colored pots are generally made from plastic waste or recycled material. White and other bright colored pots require fresh resins made from oil stocks to mold. I guess that is one of the reasons some in the industry are pushing fancy pots as a way to charge more for the plant.

I recently discovered that brown pots were one and a half times as expensive as identical black pots.

If you are operating with a dumpster in Lancaster County and your pots land there they will/should find their way to the burn to energy unit in the northern part of the county. There, they will be burned at very high temperatures, which greatly reduces emissions and the space required in the landfill and produce a bit of electricity to boot.

Another, perhaps better, option would be to ask your plant supplier if they would take back their pots after you empty them. My guess is that even today's light weight plastic pots would hold up for three or four trips from the greenhouse to your home and back.

A brief chlorine bath for sterilization is cost competitive with buying new pots in today's oil/resin market. The environment would like that, too.