Keysborough and Springvale residents have a new way to dispose of their old plastic plant pots.
The Bunnings stores in both suburbs are part of a new trial recycling program.
The pots aren’t able to be recycled through kerbside programs because of contamination issues with cleaning and sorting processes.
So Bunnings Keysborough and Springvale are encouraging residents to bring in their plastic pots – no matter how old, dirty or broken – and drop them in a designated cage.
Polymer Processes will pick up and recycle the pots, and Garden City Plastics will turn them into new pots for use by greenlife growers.
A Garden City Plastics spokesperson said recycling plastic used less energy than producing it from raw materials.
The energy saving is about 56 gigajoules per tonne of plastic – the electricity used in two Australian homes in a year.
Bunnings Keysborough complex manager Demo Stamatelos said they were excited to trial the new service.
“It’s a simple and effective way to do our bit for the environment,” he said.