Are any schools near you involved in a 'green up' type program where they are trying to pretty up the yard and plant some flowers and shrubs and trees? Maybe they have some teachers who are trying to teach about seeds/growing etc and would appreciate some pots (and maybe some free seeds and maybe even someone to come in and spend an afternoon a week teaching about gardening in a "gardening club"). I know our school asked for some divisions to use in the new gardens. I sent mine in a plastic bag, but if they had sent a pot or two home with DGD, it wouldn't have been so messy. :)

A few years ago I was told, by the people at one of the transfer stations here on the Cape, that they would throw away much of the recycling materials. The volume of recycling material was far greater than the ability of the recycling plants to process it. They told me that they wanted to keep the public in the habit of recycling so that if they would be ready when there was places that could process it. I was disappointed to learn that I had been living with the false good feeling that my efforts to separate and deliver these items to their areas in the transfer station along with most everyone else resulted in a better world was largely a farse. Hopefully, there are many more plants to process this stuff. But watching 3 dump workers spend their day tending to the recycle area, people walking through no less than 8 container areas each week to separate their stuff, and dealing with criss-crossing cars in the area seemed like a wasted effort when I watched the container of milk jugs get emptied into the general refuse early in the morning before the place opened. That is when they explained to me that they could only find a home for some of the materials some of the time. It was very disappointing. I live in a different community now. I find it interesting that here we do not have to separate light cardboard from other trash. All cans, bottles, and plastic containers go into one container. I would love to know how they recycle that "co-mingled" material. I guess what I am saying is that there is not a lot of opportunities to find anyone eager to accept material to recycle because they have access to more of it than they know what to do with. The best bet for recycling plant pots is to get them to someone who can use them as plant pots. But, the expense of washing process, storage, and handling might outweigh their value.

You should take them to the plant swap in San Antonio. You could do some good trading with them.

Image by: hyperdoggie Recycled Pots "Plastic Pot Recycling - Black plastic nursery/flower pots" What can you do with all those black plastic pots from the nursery you have leftover after planting your garden beds?? Member hyperdoggie shares her artistic ideas with us : First, take your cheap, ugly pot and wash it completely. Next, use an X-acto kife and scissors to make sure the drain holes were clean, and at this point you can also cut a decoration into the lip of the pot. On the larger one in the picture, I made a little southwest cut out, and perhaps on the next one I'll poke some holes around the lip and weave some jute string around it. Next, I scuffed the whole surface with steel wool, and then I took my hot glue gun and begin "drawing" decorations on the pot. I ran some of the glue around the lip to make it fatter, like real terra cotta. After it is set, I trim off the little threads from the glue, if you can't get them all, it is OK. I then painted the whole pot with a taupe colored latex house paint, and also inside the pot about an inch. I let this dry over night. The next day, I sprayed a terra cotta red color over the pot, making sure to spray thinner in some spots, thicker in other to make the smoke-clouding effect of real pottery that is fired in a kiln. I did use an airbrush for this but I am sure you can use spray paint effectively. I am sure a sponge technique would work just fine also. I then sprayed on some black paint to add depth to some spots, and more "smoke clouding". Again, I let this dry overnight, and the next day sprayed with a Krylon clearcoat. The picture here contains the Southwestern theme pots ... see other "Recycling Plastic Pots" FAQ's for additional ideas.