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If you are into gardening, and especially if you are an urban gardener without a lot of space to work with, you may have thought of using plastic containers as planters. There are a lot of reasons why using plastic storage bins as planters is a tempting idea. Plastic tubs are cheap, they’re lightweight, they’re versatile, and they’re easy to come by. But should you do it? Are plastic containers a safe, healthy choice for growing food, or will they end up poisoning you and anyone else who eats your vegetables?

Well, you do need to consider that some plastics are unsafe as they leach toxins into soil. And yes, those toxins could get into your plants, and therefore into your food. That being said, not all plastics are harmful, and it is a mistake to avoid all plastics completely out of paranoia. There are purists out there who think just touching plastic makes you somehow less of an eco-friendly human being, but there is no reason you can’t grow food organically in plastic containers.

Actually, assuming you stick with safe plastics, the argument could be made that using plastic tubs as planters is exactly the eco-friendly thing to do. This is especially true if you are re-using bins which would otherwise be thrown away (plastic bins are so handy there is no reason to ever throw them away, and yet people do it).

A lot of plastic bins do not decompose. That means that if they end up in landfills, they just sit there taking up space. They may even sit for centuries! Some types of plastic can take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade.

This notion is also pretty sad because people forget what waste actually means. Plastic bins are useful. When they sit in landfills, they are not being used. It isn’t just the fact that they are taking up space that is bad; it is the fact that they have value which isn’t being utilized. Most of us can use more value in our lives, not less. There is no reason for perfectly useful plastic storage tubs to be wasted. Gardening doesn’t create food, it creates joy.

So if you are an organic gardener who wants to save space and money by using plastic bins, I say go for it. Don’t be ashamed of using plastic bins just because they are not made out of a natural material. There are plenty of ways that you can be eco-friendly without restricting yourself entirely to wood and ceramic.

Make sure that you are only using bins which contain safe plastics that won’t harm your foodstuffs. So long as that concern is squared away, you are good to go. If you have old plastic bins in your house which are sitting around collecting dust, give them a good function in your garden. And if you buy plastic bins for gardening that over time you decide not to use for that purpose, you’ve purchased something that you can easily repurpose anywhere in your household.