Bottomless plant pots spread

Metabolix Inc. (NASDAQ: MBLX) announced in October that its joint venture with Archer Daniels Midland Co. (NYSE: ADM) called Telles, will supply Mirel bioplastic sheet-grade resin to Ball Horticultural Co. Ball will market the bioplastic as Soilwrap, a fully biodegradable and compostable plant-pot. 

The Chicago-based Ball is one of the nation's largest sellers of commercial seed for flowers and ornamental crops with breeding, production and distribution operations in more than 20 countries around the world.

Ball says it made the decision to begin using a biodegradable plant pot because of the inordinate impact of plastic on the environment, according to the company. Nearly 320 million pounds of plastic material is used each year in nursery pots, flat trays of six-pack annuals and cell packs, while only 100,000 pounds of this plastic material is recycled, the company says.

Currently, Ball is only planning to use the bioplastic in its bottomless Soilwrap plant pot. However, Telles says the product could also be used for a number of other products, including plant tags or labels, point of purchase signage and in traditional, injection-molded plant pots and thermoformed trays, thanks to the company’s past experience producing and printing on traditional plastics for the horticulture industry.

Ball is not the first company to offer compostable plastic around its plant containers. Portland-based Fred Meyer—the third largest supercenter operator in the united States, according to reports—decided to forgo plastic pots for some of its products as early as last year. The retailer switched to selling some plants wrapped in a corn-based plastic that is meant to be removed and composted before planting. According to a company spokeswoman, the customer response has been so positive that the company is expanding its line of organic vegetable starts wrapped in the bioplastic to more stores in 2009.