In July 2011 Alpine introduced a used pot return program for customers. The program has been very successful. So far we have picked up, counted and cleaned approximately 242,000 pots from customers ready to re-use in our production cycle.
This is an enormous amount of plastic that probably would have gone into landfill. That equates to a saving of 91 tonnes of CO2 emissions!
Apart from the environmental benefits we apply a credit to customers for used pot returns and to date the total credit applied to all customers is $27,000.
In order for Alpine to pick used pots from customers the pots need to be Alpine pots in 140mm, 200mm, 300mm, 400mm and 500mm pots.
We do not have a drop off facility at Alpine; our trucks collect pots from customers enabling us to apply accurate recordings and credits to customer accounts.
Some customers that continually utilise this service include Rolling Stone Landscapes, AMI-CO, Gecko Landscapes, Bates Landscape, Venation Landscapes and many more.
These companies are seeing real benefit in reducing waste in their processes and they also receive small discounts in the cost of plants they buy from Alpine.