The Hidden Cost of Plants: Plastic Pollution from the Plant Industry

Among all the serious problems our planet is facing, one often escapes the narrative. It hides behind every plant you have ever bought. From nursery pots, soil bags, gardening gloves to fertiliser bottles and insecticide sprays, the global production of agricultural plastic is bigger than ever. This places us in a state of emergency! When you think about plants only positive things comes to mind, and we don't think about plastic nor pollution, and this is due to the power of green washing we all fall into.

Is 7 minutes too much to ask? If you are reading this, you might want to take a seat. This is not a subject to be taken lightly. It impacts your life, your well-being, your future – and those you care about. You may not even acknowledge this as a real problem because the industry has distorted the narrative. Multi-million-euro deals with lobbyists have led consumers to believe they are doing something positive by buying a new plant. However, the story of that plant does not begin at the point of purchase. The same applies for the end of its journey when they die or the packaging from this activity becomes waste. The entire industry has misled us, this article only scratches the surface exposing both their failings and our own weaknesses.

Months before the purchase and transaction, the journey of that plant began as a propagation – a cutting from a mother plant “chained” to the system to bear fruit and provide “plant babies” to feed the machine. We could go further back and explore the journey of the mother plant too, but time is short, so I must hurry. What we tend to forget are the natural resources required for that plant to reach your living room: water resources (litres of irrigation), destruction of habitat (soil extraction), hazardous and poisonous chemicals (synthesised fertilisers, root hormones), land depletion (for raw materials) and lastly, loss of biodiversity (insecticides, fungicides and herbicides) to make it grow as quickly as nature allows under these circumstances. We dress in fast fashion, eat fast food, live in a fast-paced world, and buy into a fast-plant industry.

I live and breathe just like you. I am also a consumer, but I try to be better everytime. It is hard, but this is not an excuse. I blame myself for being ignorant and for not doing more. But I am not here to blame – I am here to bring the truth to the surface. The truth hurts, it shocks, it stirs emotions, and that leads to change. I own a plant business and, besides designing beautiful gardens and projects, I have to buy plants, plant them, and provide clients with an excellent experience. But at what cost? How much does my passion, my job, my professional activity costs our planet? Something is rotten here. That is why I went digging.

Globally: Plastic production keeps growing, while recycling systems do not. Europe: Plastic packaging waste per person remains high. Agricultural industry: Agricultural pots, trays, sleeves, tubes, and nets made from single-use plastics are at an all-time high. Lack of policies: Large corporations and producers of agricultural products should be subject to stricter laws and regulations, requiring them to design for recycling, use recycled materials, and reduce difficult formats that local recycling facilities cannot process.

If you are still with me, let me make you more knowledgeable in this next paragraph. We are all adults, and we know that facts are indisputable. From now onwards, it takes guts to face the truth. It takes courage to own that truth and take actions.

Accountability: plastic is everyones problem

The most recent report from Plastics Europe, “Plastics – the Fast Facts”, shows preliminary global and European plastics production data for 2023. The results are alarming. World plastics production reached around 414 million tonnes in 2023, of which 374.5 million tonnes were fossil-based. Only 36 million tonnes were generated from recycled post-consumer plastics. Clearly, there is a problem here! Sadly, only 1% comes from circular plastic production – meaning it is either bio-based, bio-attributed, or carbon-captured.

Recent data shows that 12.5 million tonnes of plastics produced were for agricultural and horticultural use, such as soil bags, nursery pots, germination trays, protective sleeves, nets, irrigation tubes, gloves, hoses, and other plastic-derived equipment. The worst part is that, even if you recycle some of this plastic waste, horticultural products are commonly made from PP, PS, or HDPE plastic containing a black pigment, which complicates sorting machines at waste management facilities. Unless they are bio-based or compostable, the reality is harsh: they cannot be recycled unless legislation changes and forces companies to use only bio-based plastic alternatives, or, even better, compostable, biodegradable or recycled plastics only.

Only 68% collected but only 9% actually recycled

Across the full lifecycle of plastic, only 68% of all generated plastic that is discarded using regular waste management strategies in place to be collected and accounted for. Hold that though. Now, only 9% of global plastic waste is recycled and re-enters the economy as secondary plastic. The rest is either dumped in landfills or incinerated. This is a terrible percentage and it shows how bad we are doing as a society.

So, if we think that recycling alone is enough, I am sorry to say – we are wrong. We have been misled. Recycling is only part of the solution. When we in fact, properly dispose of our waste and recycle, we are the beneficiaries of that, because we keep our public spaces cleaner and more organised, but the real change comes from consuming less single-use plastic and, alternatively, shifting towards more sustainable alternatives such as bio-based plastics and biodegradable solutions, which will ultimately return to nature – achieving sustainability.

We simply cannot live without packaging; it is everywhere, so it is a necessary evil. It is a disease. Forget about Covid-19, this is the true pandemic! However, what we can do is consume less, choose better products and brands. Prioritise recycled packaging products, then move towards sustainable brands that promote bio-based solutions. With this in place, recycling and waste management become much easier and more achievable – for everyone.

If we move from agro-plastics to agro-chemicals, we include fertiliser bottles and insecticide sprays, and the numbers are even worse and the reality even scarier. Given the hazardous nature of synthetic products, even if you are a recycling guru and diligently follow the protocol for discarding them properly, only one-fifth of that waste stream is effectively being recycled. Those can be mechanically recycled into non-food applications (such as pipes, conduit, posts), but the reality is that consumers often do not dispose of them properly, nor do waste management facilities, so they end up polluting landfills and poisoning our soil, air, and waterways.

Protocols advise consumers to:

1. You should triple-rinse all containers that carried any -cide products and this includes house cleaning products (not ideal for water resource management but necessary)

2. Take them to an authorised collection centre across agricultural regions where farmers/users can hand over their cleaned agro-packaging.

3. If you cannot find an authorised centre, contact VALORFITO about the Sistema Integrado de Gestão de Embalagens e Resíduos em Agricultura, which has been appointed by the Portuguese government to handle the collection of empty agro-chemical packaging. There is a searchable map labelled “Pontos de Retoma” on the VALORFITO website to find a drop-off point location around the country. In Lisbon the best drop-off point is at DMAEVC (Direção Municipal do Ambiente, Estrutura Verde, Clima e Energia) run under the Câmera Municipal de Lisboa. The best is to call and arrange things.

4. Privately, you can contact Ecodeal to arrange the disposal of chemical packaging. More information is available on their website.

   Note: We cannot dispose of insecticides, fungicides, fertilisers, biocides, and other cleaning products commercially available the same way we do for our residential waste. We haven't been educated on this let alone have we been instructed about this by our council members. This is an eye-opener for all of us. You simply can't wait for others to do it, you have to take matters into your own hands.

We share a collective responsibility

Consumers should stop buying products (regardless of their nature) from brands and companies that do not offer conscious packaging and do not respect the principles of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) regulations, which require producers/importers/packagers of agro-chemical products to be responsible (physically or financially) for the packaging they produce and its end-of-life management. In Portugal, even when EPR is in place backed by laws and regulations that define this principle, there is no patrolling to ensure this is actually being practiced/followed – it is a free-for-all and the planet pays the price.

Trust me, we could go on for days, but in this blog post, not an encyclopaedia. I wanted to do a superficial study of the situation for my own knowledge and understand what is really going on in my own industry – the plant industry. However, the onion is rotten, and as I peel back the layers, it stinks worse and worse, and I am terrified to acknowledge that I am part of this. We have been scammed into believing that buying a plant is all positive – and, trust me, for the most part it is – however, if after reading this post, you still continue consuming as before, then nothing will ever change.

I urge you, reader, if not for the Planet, then be so selfish to do it for your own sake, you well-being, your future! I appreciate your commitment to finishing reading this article. If you did, then I have hope for humanity, because now, you have been made aware of the problem. The hope is that you can rethink and reshape your mind. Polish your actions. Revise your lifestyle. Adjust your consumer behaviour. Choose better. Do better. Choose sustainability.

Sustainability is only possible when whatever you take from nature is returned to it - the law of return - even if in a different shape or form. Choose bio-based packaging, biodegradable or compostable alternatives. If that is not available, choose recycled packaging. Single-used plastic should not be part of your daily choices any longer.

Written by Lucas Cruz Bueno

I do not own the rights of the images used.