Reduce, reuse, recycle

What do we do with items we have finished using? Well, if you know your three ‘R’s, you can stop them ending up in landfill and bring a little personal character to your garden decor.

Save unused items from a trip to landfill. With an open mind, just about anything lying around the house can be upcycled.

• Used takeaway coffee cups are perfect to reuse for planting out seedlings or sowing seeds. Puncture a few holes in the bottom of the cup for essential drainage, use your favourite premium potting mix and plant away. Egg cartons are also great to sow seeds. • Reuse shaker fertiliser bottles. Refill contents and shake away. • Old busted tyres, reinforced concrete steel, old windows and doors can all be garden features. • Any unused household objects that you can drill holes in the bottom can be used as a planter.

Woven baskets, bowls, etc. • Use old hessian or patterned fabric to make kokodama balls. • Reuse used perfume, diffuser bottles as vases. • Smash up broken ceramic pots to line new pots for excellent drainage.

Reshape old barbed wire into a decorative trellis Reuse reinforcing concrete wires as a wall trellis. trellis. Paint old tyres in multiple colours to match fl owering plants.

Colander hanging basket. Also use old cake tins, wine crates, anything you can hold potting mix in and poke drainage holes in the bottom.

Reuse plastic pots for seedlings and younger seedlings and younger plants.

Reuse takeaway cups

Photo Credit: GAP Photos/Sarah Cuttle

• Follow the directions on fertiliser packaging to ensure you are not over fertilising plants. • Look after your tools after each use. Follow the label care directions. They will last longer. Buy good quality. • No need to rush out to the hardware for tools. Share and swap tools with your trusted garden friends. • Grow plants and edibles that are suited to your climate and particular season. Less chance they will die and need replacing. • Rot your food waste and make organic compost for your zerowaste home garden. • Give unused seedlings to your friends. • Harvest whatever is ready to eat, and plan your meals around what you are growing so you don’t waste any of your delicious home-grown produce. Share with your friends or freeze excess produce. • Reduce water usage by installing drippers - only wet the part of the soil with roots, thus reducing wastage from evaporation and run-offs. • Reduce chemical use by treating pests and disease early before it spreads. • Dare we add another ‘R’ - REFUSE. Easy way to reduce is refuse.

Buy only what you need, refuse excessive packaging and share, share, share.

SAFE DISPOSAL OF OLD CHEMICAL CONTAINERS

RECYCLE USED POTTING MIX BAGS

What do you do with old chemical bottles and containers that are either full or empty?

Disposing of hazardous materials such as bleach, garden and pool chemicals, and cleaning solvents in your general waste or recycling bin is not safe. They can be fl ammable, corrosive, explosive or toxic. Hazardous materials can cause fi res in bins or garbage trucks, creating a safety hazard for truck drivers, the community and the environment.

Some councils offer free household hazardous waste disposal days throughout the year. These disposal days are for items that cannot be disposed of via sewers, rubbish bins or Council facilities during general operations. Contact your local council for suitable facilities.

All Searles potting mix, compost, mulch and garden soil soft plastic bags can be recycled at any soft plastic recycling program such as REDcycle participating drop off centres.

Quick tip: After use give each bag a quick rinse with water, dry off and cut Rinse bags before recycling the plastic down to A3 size before recycling.

Our bags you can recycle: Potting mix and specialty mix bags, compost and mulch bags, 5 IN 1 Organic Fertiliser DIG-IN bags & Garden soil mix.