PotPunt

A large amount of plastics are used in the horticultural sector. For example, plastic cultivation pots in Belgium already account for 63,000 tons of plastic waste per year. When all the one-year cultivation pots from Belgium are stacked, this is good for a distance from Antwerp to the North Pole.

PotPunt offers a solution to this problem by including the current plastic cultivation pots in a circular system.

PotPunt is a system that enables the reuse of plastic cultivation pots in order to reduce the number of disposable plastics used in horticulture. To make this possible, a product service was developed that consists of collection containers for the used cultivation pots and a service linked to this. The collection container ensures that the cultivation pots undergo an initial cleaning and are sorted by size group, without using expensive or fragile elements. The service that PotPunt offers collects, cleans and sorts the cultivation pots until they can be sold back to plant nurseries. For the sorting and cleaning process linked to the service, a partnership was set up with tailor-made companies (social economy).

The collection containers will be found at plant sales points and in places where people are already motivated to sort, such as container parks. In this way, the recipients will be accessible to garden contractors and private individuals. The users are motivated to collect the cultivation pots upside down so that the raw dirt can already fall out of the cultivation pots. This raw dirt can then flow to a compartment for sand.

The cooperation with tailor-made companies is almost self-evident. For example, these companies are looking for what their contribution can be to the circular economy, sorting and cleaning cultivation pots is a very repetitive task that has to be done manually. That makes this task an ideal match with tailor-made companies. When the cultivation pots have been cleaned and sorted, they can be resold to plant nurseries.