It seems to me the main problem is inadequate processing systems for recyclable materials. With any luck, someone who can influence the technology and systems available to local councils will have been watching and will thus have been informed. However, it does seem to me that every council/police force/health service/social service/education authority in the UK invents its own wheels for everything instead of sharing best practice and pooling resources to get the best systems available. Lots of waste in the system, both human and resources.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
Not sure if you saw GW @Obelixx but it seems that the main problem is that the sorting technology doesn't recognise black plastic (it's done by light reflection so black = no light) so that's why black plastic food trays, pots and plastic module trays etc can't be sorted at the waste processors and therefore aren't accepted in our bins because just one will contaminate the other plastic in the batch and render it useless and unable to be recycled.
The development of other colours for pots which will produce just as good growing conditions for the roots was being looked at and trialled and if I understood correctly, will soon be available to the plant producers, and maybe the public too?
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I did and hence my comment. More sophisticated sorting or collecting would retrieve the plastic pots. Our local council - small rural and coastal resort mix - now accepts all food and other plastic/tetra pack/cling film etc packaging in the recycling bin because it has a system to sort it all and we can even add washed plastic pots or take them to the recycling centre separately. I re-use mine till they crack up which can take years and then they go to be recycled.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
I thought it was useful. The OP is wrong in their assumption, the piece made it clear that the available suggests most gardeners do not consider the problem of plastic pots. There is a massive problem, we are very much part of it, we need to become part of the solution.
How can you lie there and think of England When you don't even know who's in the team
Not being in the UK I didnt not see the program, but we can recycle plastic of all colours here, the tip has bins for soft clear, soft coloured, hard clear and hard coloured, and a large bin for agricultural plastics. (think silage plastic and bale wraps)
However my plastic pots are a mixture of redish and black, does it really matter what colour the pot is so long as it's lightproof?
The topic was interesting and informative but, in my opinion, far too long. The same point was made time and time again. We didn't need to be shown footage of waste tips etc. I thought the presentation was poor too. To me the salient parts were (1) black plastic is difficult to impossible to sort automatically (2) black pots are made from recycled material anyway (3) tests are being carried out to see if plants in coloured plastic grow as well as those in black. That could all have been covered in a couple of minutes. It seemed once again to be a desperate struggle to fill time in the hour long programme.
The problem is that at the recycling centre the different types of plastic are sorted automatically by a machine that uses the amount of light reflected by the plastic to work out which sort of plastic they are. Black plastic does not reflect light so it doesn't get picked out of the mass of other plastic and contaminates it.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Another problem is that some councils recycle some plastics which other councils do not.(yogurt pot type plastic for example ) A lack of "joined up thinking" which is where central government could play a part.
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The development of other colours for pots which will produce just as good growing conditions for the roots was being looked at and trialled and if I understood correctly, will soon be available to the plant producers, and maybe the public too?
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
The OP is wrong in their assumption, the piece made it clear that the available suggests most gardeners do not consider the problem of plastic pots.
There is a massive problem, we are very much part of it, we need to become part of the solution.
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
A lack of "joined up thinking" which is where central government could play a part.