Eco friendly module trays

That is neat,clean,tidy and looks really good. So is not proper gardening!
Well done Sheal
Yours
Stig of the Dump

 

@Sheal They are brilliant. Thank you so much for that.

 

@Peas I never have enough toilet roll tubes so a few of my friends save them for me as well and I use plastic trays that fruit come in to put them in.

 

The best thing ever to come from inside a newspaper, fish n chips.

 

If your just wanting to sow seeds, then instead of buying modular trays, why not use egg cartons as an alternative.

 

I've used/do use plastic fruit trays too, the only negative is the roots getting tangled up and then breaking them which is why I'd like to use primarily module trays. Inspired by you lot on here, I've started saving up loo rolls and also any spare paper I can roll up into a makeshift pot.
I don't eat eggs so don't have any cartons but I will be on the look out for anything similar

 

I pot them on before the roots get tangled.

 

@HarryS, sorry if it offends you, I can't help being tidy minded. Besides, I'm not about to mess up my sun room and I haven't got a greenhouse here....but that would be reasonably clean and tidy too.

 

To think you can grow young seedings in toilet roll tubes, it was not that long ago you needed bolt cutters to get them..

 

But biodegrable 'eco' stuff is single use, still requires manufacturing, transportation, warehouse & sales floor space, together with heating, lighting and staff/customers driving to work/shop.

Multiple use plastic is probably more 'eco', and individual reusable pots (or low cell number modules) help reduce energy use of heated propagators and growlights.

For example, I have hundreds of thick polythene 'flexi-pots' that are over 10 years old, can get used several times a year, and are still all in as new condition.

They get used for sowing larger seeded veg/flowers that will go in heated propagators (have 5 plus 600 x 1200mm heat mat), then as seeds in individual pots germinate they are immediately transferred to a cooler environment.

As pots are removed, they are shuffled around and new stuff sown to get the maximum use of space, investment in equipment and most effecient use of energy. If module are used they sit there until everything has germinated, or have to be divided which reduces their lifespan.

I have 55, 75 and 95mm diameter pots that are used for french/runner beans, squashes, peas, sunflowers, etc. and multi-seed sowings of radishes, etc. As they are flexible, they can be squeezed together to fill nearly 100% of propagator space.









Just cleared some space for another sowing




P.S. The largest pots had fibre liners added to help avoid root disturbance when planting out.

 

I think that the only way to stop using plastic for fruit and veg is to have it loose in the supermarket and use paper bags, but where is all the paper going to come from and it will take a very long time to grow the trees.

 

Not just paper, where is all the cardboard going to come from to make 'eco' pots and modules?

'Amazon effect' drives 1000% increase in cardboard prices threatening to disrupt ecommerce deliveries - Latest Retail Technology News From Across The Globe - Charged.


Would anybody believe using disposable single use paper/cardboard cups and plates, etc. in lieu of reusable ones was 'eco' ?

 

In the past, that used to be the norm when the high street was full of independent and market traders, then along came the huge supermarkets.

Do the supermarkets actually want us to use paper bags? It's all about getting us through the tills ASAP and using the self service kiosk, where bar codes are a must.

The focus always seems to be on recycling, yet when you take into account the extra costs for energy to recycle, is that actually the right way forward. Maybe going down the route, of durable, reusable, longer lasting is the way forward, instead of the one use packaging.

 

Ah ...my hobby horse

My concern is when it does come to end of life. Way too much plastic is finding its way into water courses and out to sea. Lots of stuff chucked down the loo, and then into the sea. I appreciate that you are not (I assume!) flushing your old pots down the loo ... but the stuff that is washing up on beaches is coming from somewhere, and it isn't only the obvious stuff - it even includes the "noodles" that they use in injection moulding to make things, so even the raw material is finding its way out to sea.

Tom Scott did a video recently where he went to Perranporth Beach, in Cornwall, with the intention of looking for Lego Bricks washed up from a container that fell over the side of the Tokio Express in high seas back in 1997 - bricks still washing up. What he actually found was a truly scary array of plastic bits and pieces (video below)

Hadn't really thought about it, but assuming enough biomass is / can be grown (seems likely to me) then it is supply-and-demand; if we suddenly want everything to be paper bags and cardboard boxes then, to start with, we won't have enough bag/box factories. I would like to see substitutes to paper - such as starch - but all the "compostable plastic" substitute bags I have seen say "Put in landfill, not recycle" and I doubt that will work well! and thus the poor recycle folk have a new headache to deal with ...

"reusable ones" as in China? coz I don't have a problem with them. When broken they are going to be inert in landfill / hardcore for a path / whatever, I think? I've probably misunderstood "reusable" ??

Tom Scott's video (6 minutes)

 

Different sort of pot