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Don’t have a lot of room for gardening? Thinking about trying out plastic container gardening for tomatoes? If so, you may wonder whether plastic containers for growing plants are really safe. Is using plastic tubs as planters good or bad for your health? Will you end up poisoning yourself because of the plastic leaching into the plants?

The short answer to this question is, “Yes, plastic bins for gardening are potentially safe.” It actually depends on the plastics that you use. Some plastics are harmful to human health, while others are perfectly safe. If you are in doubt, the plastics you should avoid are these:

• PVC (look for a triangle symbol on the plastic with #3 inside)
• Polystyrene (PS). This is #6.
• Anything with a “#7” in a triangle. This stands for “other.” Basically, the plastic is of unknown origin, which is why you may not want to trust it.

Safe plastics for planting include:

• PETE or PET (this is #1 inside the triangle symbol)
• High density polyethylene (HDPE—this is #2 in the triangle)
• Low density polyethylene (LDPE—this is #4 in the triangle)
• Polypropylene (PP, which is #5 in the triangle)

Another concern you may have is whether the plastic will heat up excessively in the sunshine and harm your tomatoes. Tomatoes can wilt if they are exposed to excessive heat. For that reason, you may want to watch out with putting a plastic vegetable growing container out in the sun on concrete. If you must do this, consider investing in some kind of a shade cloth or even a shade plant. This should prevent the wilting problem.

In case you are wondering, there are a number of benefits to using plastic for your tomato plants:

• Plastic is lightweight. If you need to relocate your crops, it will be easy to do so.
• Plastic is inexpensive. You will pay a lot less for plastic bins than you would for heavy ceramic pots.
• Plastic is versatile. You might grow tomatoes this year and decide to grow something else next year. You can use the same plastic bins over again and try growing herbs or other fruits or vegetables.
• You are protecting the environment. Some people don’t want to buy plastics because they are not the most environmentally-friendly material to begin with. But think about it. If you know you will use your plastic container year after year, you will be keeping it out of a landfill. And even if you eventually stop gardening, you will find that the same bin is great for many other applications around the home.

The bottom line is this. Growing tomatoes in plastic bins is safe, both for your plants and for you. Just make sure that you are using the right type of plastic and that you are providing your tomatoes with some kind of shade if you live in a hot, bright climate. You should have great results.