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Do Plastic Trays Leach Plastic Into Our Soil & Eventually Our Plants? Seed Starting In Canada
Apr 27, 2022
Have you ever wondered whether or not plastic is dangerous for food production? What happens when plastic seed starting trays break down? Do plants absorb plastic? These are all valid questions and In this Gardening In Canada Video we break down the science behind plastic and seedlings.
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Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:00
Hello fun people. How are you guys doing today? If you're new around here, my name is Ashley and I'm a soil scientist
0:05
This is my sidekick here Ella. She's been in videos for a little while
0:10
I usually kick her out. It's a little bit loud, but I digress in today's video. We are gonna be talking about
0:17
plastic and Specifically seed starting plastic got asked this question over on Instagram if you guys did not know you can find me Facebook Instagram
0:25
tick-tock you can also check me out gardening Canada done net you can
0:30
contact me there in the comment section there's emails you name it you can
0:34
contact me very many different ways but people will contact me and ask you really
0:38
quick questions especially ones that they're concerned about and one of the
0:43
questions I've gotten nothing three or four times now was whether or not using
0:48
plastic to start seedlings or to grow in is safe I did do a video on this a while
0:54
back and in the video it's an older one we discussed a whole bunch of different
0:59
things about plastics and plants and soil and all that fun stuff but I
1:03
thought it would be a great idea to revisit this because that was more geared
1:07
towards container gardeners and people who are using pop bottles that sort of
1:11
thing to actually grow in but what about the actual plastic containers you get
1:16
from a grower or from the greenhouse and especially the jiffy pods those are most
1:23
definitely plastic biodegradable plastic they say you know they last for ages
1:28
plastic and then the last and whether or not you should start your seeds in this so we're gonna break this down of course using science and take a little bit of a
1:35
look at whether or not this ends up in our soil and whether or not ultimately this plastic ends up in our plants so the first question we have to ask is what
1:42
kind of plastics are our trades made from and I'm actually kind of surprised
1:47
by this I try to look at the trays the two most common trays you would find
1:51
which would be the pod like the peep pod style and then also of course this
1:56
plastic plug style and plastic plug style unfortunately doesn't really have a number in the recycle number those two but I'll show some close-ups it's kind
2:08
of almost blocked out to be honest which is insane to me so I actually don't know
2:12
what the new recycle number on this is the recycle number or on the Jiffy pod
2:17
is a six so that is what we're looking for is that little recycle symbol and
2:23
we're looking for the number inside of that I'll put up on the screen which ones are the food safe ones I cannot remember off the top of my head but
2:30
essentially what that means is if it's food safe it's considered to not break
2:35
down as quickly and end up in our food system now the main concern of plastics is something we call the phthalates and the reason for this is this is that soft
2:45
malleable plastic we find in things like garden hoses for example and it has been
2:50
shown to hyper accumulate or accumulate inside of plants in particular things
2:56
like lettuce strawberries leafy greens things of that nature so when it
3:00
accumulates in the plants the next question is is it dangerous the
3:04
quantities in which it does accumulate in the plant dangerous to consume and
3:09
the answer is no they haven't deemed it haven't deemed it as dangerous now
3:17
whether or not 30 40 years down the road we're going to readjust that thought I'm
3:22
not sure but the moral of the story is that plastics do break down and plastics
3:27
do break down and end up in your soil and then ultimately inside of your plants
3:32
because in many times they are small enough to work their ways into the plant system. So how do
3:39
we prevent this or how do we lessen the amount of plastic we end up actually consuming via the soil
3:46
and plant? And the answer to this is multifaceted. There's abiotic factors that we can control
3:53
Things such as temperature and sun exposure will change or alter the plastic and degrade it over
4:00
time ultimately all of which will eventually end up in our soil the next
4:06
way to mediate or reclimate this in any way shape or form would be to use new
4:11
trays or use trays that involve less plastic and what I mean by that is
4:17
obviously we can't lessen the amount of plastic in the jiffy pod tray because
4:23
it's just a big open thing of nothing in it so you could use things like a soil
4:29
blocker, which I'll leave a link for down below. You ultimately want to reduce the
4:34
sites in which the soil touches the plastic. So this 72 cell plant tray, all
4:41
four corners are getting touched by plastic because the way the cell is
4:45
designed. So there are ways to lessen our interfaces in which our soil reacts
4:50
with the plastic. Then there are biotic factors, so living organisms that we can
4:56
control that ultimately will change how plastic is broken down so if we use
5:02
things like mycorrhizal fungi in our seed starting kit when it's in contact
5:07
with so many surfaces of plastic we increase our potential for plastic to be
5:12
put into the soil because mycorrhizal fungi or just fungi and certain bacterias in general or slowly decompose the plastic around it fun fact they have been finding soil microbes out there that have evolved now to actually decompose plastic because there
5:30
just so much plastic naturally residing in the soil itself now the government doesn't treat this
5:38
as a serious issue whatsoever even all men or organic certifications don't treat this very
5:45
seriously either ultimately the levels in plastic are so low there's no cause for concern so if
5:50
you're an organic gardener an organic grower and you're using plastic for example these trays
5:58
doesn't affect your growing organically certification despite the fact that it ends up in
6:02
the plant it's still considered organic produce now I know that's incredibly
6:07
hypocritical and some people are probably screaming and yelling at me I
6:10
don't make the rules that's just what the rules are and I think the last point
6:15
when it comes to plastics and any of the soil and ultimately the plants is
6:20
biodegradable plastics so plastics that are labeled as biodegradable biodegrade And unfortunately, we have a Romeo-Juliette scenario with biodegradable
6:34
We love the idea of biodegradable. We get excited about it. So we're more likely to purchase things that are biodegradable, including plastics
6:42
But ultimately, what ends up happening is that everything that's biodegradable has to be degraded and separated into different bits and bobs
6:51
And the bits and bobs are chemical compounds. compounds the original chemical compounds in which made up said tray so what ends up happening
7:02
is the chemicals just end up in the soil a bit quicker than they would if the tray wasn't
7:07
biodegradable so ultimately using biodegradable anything in a soil system plastic wise it just
7:14
like i said it breaks down and ends up as a chemical compound separate chemical compounds
7:19
given but ultimately still ends up in the soil system now one thing you may not realize is plastic but
7:26
Technically has be paid BPA in it is the new fabric pots
7:31
So the new fabric pots unless they're say hemp or something in that nature are made with BPA
7:37
So if you guys did not know BPA is not a food safe plastic
7:42
and that is why a lot of water bottles and things especially in when it first came out that they had to be removed from water
7:49
bottles it would say BPA free on them because they've been deemed dangerous so
7:55
just make sure that when you are purchasing things like cloth pots from wherever they may be Amazon whatever the case is just make sure they aren made from plastic and they are made from hemp because the the cloth ones
8:09
do contain BPA and if you're using them for vegetable gardening or any form of produce
8:14
you do want to be careful so the ultimate message here is that yes plastic will end up in your soil
8:21
And yes, plastic can be uptaken by plants and has been for all kinds of purposes found in plant tissue
8:29
But our government or our scientists don't think it's in any dangerous level to the point that they still allow organically classified produce to be produced in plastic
8:42
So does it hurt the plants? No. The only one that would hurt the plants is BP in high concentrations
8:48
but again it's gonna be really difficult to even get into that wheelhouse ways to mitigate it would
8:54
be to control abiotic factors things like heat and temp temperature heat and just the degradation
9:01
of the actual plastic itself don't leave them on the sun if you don't have to especially the seed
9:07
starting trays if you want to reuse those year after year use them indoors but then store them
9:13
doors or store them in a nice dark environment don't just leave them out in the front lawn but
9:19
i'm going to continue to use plastic to grow my seedlings in because it is literally quite honestly
9:25
the only option i guess you could use a newspaper that my son is they use vegetable inks now um you
9:31
could make your own paper pots absolutely there's no reason why you couldn't but yeah just something
9:37
to keep in mind something to be aware of fortunately this is just the world we live in
9:41
I want to thank you guys for watching. If you enjoyed the video, be sure to give it a thumbs up
9:47
Let me know in the comments down below what video you would like to see next
9:51
whether it's houseplants or gardening content. I'd love to hear your guys' ideas
9:56
and I will talk to you guys next time. Bye. She is so noisy today
10:01
I was giving you a chance to be back on camera, and you're just ruining it for yourself
10:09
You're ruining it for yourself. the people are going to complain they're going to complain they're going to they're going to
10:18
no they you can't dance on camera they're going to come get they're going to complain
10:25
just a fun fact she's bringing up food out of her crop to feed me right now that's wonderful
#Plastics & Polymers
#Biological Sciences
#Ecology & Environment