A GARDEN centre near Chirk is encouraging green-fingered enthusiasts to be more eco-friendly.

Dobbies Moreton Park has teamed up with sustainable plant pot designer, elho, to provide a plastic plant pot recycling bin in a bid to help gardeners with plant pot recycling and prevent further plastic waste ending up in landfill.

The bin is one of 69 now in place at Dobbies stores across the country.

Chris Buck, northern account manager at elho, explained: “We’re pleased to be working on this initiative with Dobbies to encourage gardeners to recycle their plant pots, and to make it incredibly easy for them to do so.

"It’s great to be working together to collect plastic garden waste and give it a second lease of life, instead of sending mountains of it to landfill. We wanted to help provide gardeners with a simple, convenient solution to dispose of their plant pots in an environmentally friendly way.

Border Counties Advertizer: The recycling bin. Picture: Dobbies.The recycling bin. Picture: Dobbies.

"When visiting the centre to buy more plants, simply return your old pots – it couldn’t be easier!”

The partnership comes after it was widely reported that kerbside recycling of plant pots is challenging with policies vary significantly from council to council, particularly when it comes to black plant pots, which can leave gardeners at a loss with what to do with their disregarded pots.

Now gardeners can simply take their plastic plant pots and trays to Dobbies Moreton Park store for them to be recycled.

Dobbies’ goal is for the initiative to provide customers with the knowledge that plant trays and pots they have purchased are recyclable in store.

Marcus Eyles, horticultural director at Dobbies Garden Centres, added: “We are always looking for ways to embed sustainability into our operations, and this is a positive step forward in our #SustainableDobbies journey.

“We also know from our own research that this is also something our customers are increasingly passionate about, so while we have encouraged pot recycling for a number of years in-store, this new bin at our Moreton Park store will provide customers with a clear message and opportunity to recycle.”