Caring For The Environment
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Kerbside recyclable pots made from post-consumer waste.
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We have made the decision to stop production of our plants in black pots. Due to the way recycling companies work, these pots were often slipping through the sorting process at recycling centres and ending up in landfill as the black colour absorbed infrared lasers that sorted them. By simply changing the colour of our pots, they can now be detected on sorting lines and sent for recycling rather than landfill.
We also return all of our old plastic pots and trays for recycling at our local commercial recycling facility. The various plastics are sorted before being processed into small plastic pellets that can be melted down and used again in brand new plastic products.
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Customers are welcome to send back their old pots and trays to us so we can either reuse them or send them off for recycling.
In-House Production
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By moving over 85% of our production in-house, we are able to significantly cut down on imports of young plants, cuttings and seed. This reduces the amount of land and air miles plants are doing and helping the environment. It also means we have more control over what we grow and significantly reduces the chances of plants arriving with pest and disease issues.
Recycling Of Rainwater
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We can now store over 7 million litres of rainwater across both sites making us totally self-sufficient, meaning we do not put a strain on local water sources. Natural rainwater is best for our plants as there is no chlorine or chemical content.
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With the continued expansion of the nursery, we completed our 2nd water storage reservoir during August of 2022. As a result of 3 unusually warm and dry summers here in the Cambridgeshire Fens, we found ourselves struggling for water for irrigation on multiple occasions, meaning a new reservoir was absolutely necessary. The project was completed within 4 weeks and is able to store a further 4.5 million litres of rainwater for our irrigation needs.
Peat Reduction
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From 2024, Chapel Cottage Plants have fully committed to move all finished product production into peat-free potting mixes. The majority of our Autumn/Winter potting schedule was potted into a peat-free mix, with all future production from there on in the new compost.
Where young plant material is produced in-house, all cuttings are stuck in a peat-free plug. We continue to trial peat-free seeding mixes.
We understand that there is increased pressure on the industry to reduce the amount of peat that is used in products for environmental reasons however, it is important to extensively trial and test the results before we can bring this to market.
Transport
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Wherever possible, we use our own transport to deliver your plants. All of our loads are carefully planned to keep annual miles to a minimum, cut down on fuel usage and reduce the impact on the environment.
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For 2021, we have discontinued our branded corex trays and replaced them with 10-cell formed trays which mean we can fit a further 7, 1litre trays to a trolley. Because of this, customers are requiring fewer trollies to deliver their orders and as a result we do fewer road miles with more product fitting onto each vehicle.
Trolley Wrap & Clingfilm
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With all of our plants now going into fitted-cell trays, there is very little need to wrap trolleys before they go onto vehicles. Where this is not possible, we now wrap our trollies with a new perforated cling wrap that uses 40% less plastic than the previous one we used. This means we save on hundreds of kilo's of unnecessary plastic per year.