Is This Industry Really Green?

Is This Industry Really Green? By Russell Holshouser, NSI Director of Marketing and Business Development

Not Green Enough! We can make the industry much greener. Nursery Supplies, Inc. (NSI), including Summit Plastic Co. and Plastic Holdings, Inc., has been a leader in recycling, innovator in new product designs and new material used to manufacture horticulture containers for over 60 years.

Since the beginning “green” was more than just the color of the Nursery Supplies’ logo, it has been a part of our DNA. That philosophy of protecting our planet and environment through recycling continues today. Since 2015, NSI has recycled more than 247 million pounds of post-consumer and post-industrial plastic, 49 million pounds per year! As good as that sounds the horticulture industry still faces a big challenge with recycling plastic containers.

In 2017, 26.8 million tons of plastic were landfilled in the United States according to EPA.gov. Despite being a “green” industry, we produce an incredible amount of plastic waste and we do not have a good closed-loop reuse system. The reality is that recycling is not an easy process. It is tough to manage, takes extensive resources to maintain, adds complexity to the manufacturing facility and overall company, and the benefits may not produce the ROI that makes it sustainable.

Other factors considered are the freight to get loads of used plastic to one of the few facilities that recycle and ensuring that the material we get back is not contaminated. The product must be free of dirt, and other non-recyclable materials that must be removed before being recycled, as well as the need to separate the different plastics.

Many horticultural containers still consist of 0% recycled material, and some are not recyclable, meaning they end up contributing to the tons of plastic waste generated in the United States. Other pot manufacturers are recycling as well, and we are all faced with these obstacles every day. Consumers want recycling to be easy, but recycling today is anything but easy.

How do six detergent bottles end up as flower pots? Nursery Supplies’ Texas and Pennsylvania manufacturing plants are also recycling facilities, and all our facilities use recycled plastic. This includes blow-molding, injection-molding and thermoforming (excluding color and additives). 100% of our black plastic pots and trays are made from recycled material and 80% of all material used in our facilities is post-consumer & post-industrial containers, made up of the following polymers; High Density Polyethylene (HDPE-#2), Polypropylene (PP#5) & Polystyrene (PS-#6). This is trash that we have kept out of the landfill.

Over the years with the increased use of recycled material, NSI has increased its testing of incoming materials. Each load of materials is thoroughly inspected and sample material from each load is run through a vigorous testing regiment in order to verify properties and identify contaminants to ensure quality material for manufacturing.

As a final verification, NSI evaluates finished products to ensure the highest quality containers are still being produced with the recycled resins. Testing of mechanical properties as well as impact properties is critical to the overall quality of the container. Atmospheric testing is also done to evaluate the effect of sunlight and temperature on the finished product.

So, is this green industry really green? I will let you decide for yourself. I’ll just say this, by using NSI containers you can rest assured that we are all making the right choices for our environment. NSI has recycled 247 million pounds of post-consumer and post-industrial material since 2015, and we are not stopping there. Our customers expect, and NSI has delivered the highest quality containers in the industry, and we will continue using recycled plastic. We will continue using our innovation and resources to ensure we are designing the right pot with the right content to enable a greener industry. We have challenges ahead of us, but Nursery Supplies is your partner in this battle, and we continue to strive to make this industry greener!

Sources: https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-aboutmaterials-waste-and-recycling/plastics-materialspecific-data