Bye Bye Plastic!

The world is having their say, single use plastic is on the out and we couldn’t be more excited about it!

With the recent announcement from South Australia to ban single use plastics, it is clear that people are not ok with the amount of plastic in our communities. Hopefully it won't be long until the rest of Australia follows suit.

Here at Urban Plant Growers, sustainability is at the absolute core of our business model. After spending our Sunday as part of the Clean Up Australia Day crew, it is undeniable that even here in Australia, there is a major problem with plastic pollution. Within a one hour walk covering 1.4 km, five of our staff volunteers filled eight bags which were each 100L! The main items collected included plastic takeaway and coffee cups, plastic bags, cigarette butts, soft plastic food wrappers, straws and bits of wet wipe. The sheer quantity of waste was absolutely astonishing.

Due to the convenience of our curbside collection services, we often think of the issue of waste as out of sight and out of mind. Unfortunately, this is not true, waste does not disappear, it is often sent to landfill where it will sit and decay, releasing greenhouse gases into our atmosphere. In addition to this, the rubbish that doesn’t make it to landfill often ends up in our environment, from pristine forests to rivers and the open ocean. This then affects wildlife, pollutes waterways and can even end up back in our food chain.

So, what can we do about plastic waste?

Here at Urban Plant Growers, we make every effort to ensure that we minimise all waste produced from our products.

• Our products have all been designed to the highest quality so that you can use them again and again. We also offer 1 year warranty so that if there are any issues, we can fix them up for you to make sure your product doesn't need to be thrown away if a small part breaks.
• Received a package from us lately? Hopefully you noticed how little plastic we used. We have made a huge effort to ensure we have minimised all plastic where possible. We have even invested in a machine that will transform our waste cardboard into a soft material that we can pack into the boxes to keep your products safe. Upcycling a waste product onsite to remove a single use plastic - that’s the dream!
• At the end of the day, to tackle the plastic problem we need to shift to a circular economy. So, what is a circular economy? Essentially instead of having end of life products that go to landfill they get circled back into the economy someway. For example, we are working on developing a returnable container for our nutrients to help minimise the excess jars being produced. It's all about Reduce -> Reuse -> Recycle – or up-cycle!
• The best thing you can do? Use our products to grow your own food! Not only does this reduce the transportation required to get the food to your door, but we can also say goodbye to all of that unnecessary plastic packaging we see at supermarkets. Yay!

We are constantly striving to improve the sustainability of our products and business as a whole. If you have any comments or suggestions, we would love to hear from you! Reach out to us at info@urbanplantgrowers.com