Black ones, brown ones, short ones, tall ones. Rows upon rows of flowerpots of all sizes are available to gardeners who stop by the Beaver Hill Disposal Site, about 15 miles south of Coos Bay off U.S. Highway 101.

The flowerpot recycling program began about three years ago.

“It just kind of goes in spurts. There might be 100 or there might be 10,” said Cheryl Westgaard, business operations manager who’s worked at the Beaver Hill site for about 10 years.

Westgaard said local nurseries, Master Gardeners and residents visit the disposal site’s area set aside just for this purpose. She said everyone is welcome to pick up or drop off as many of these containers as they would like.

Westgaard said the program began at the suggestion of Karl Bender, who co-owns Three B’s Nursery in Coos Bay with his wife, Dawna Bender.

Bender started recycling flowerpots because he saw the necessity.

“One of the things we noticed was that the plastic nursery pots were being incinerated,” Bender said.

Plastic, when burned, lets off toxic fumes, he said. And nursery pots are ultraviolet-protected containers designed to break down slowly in the environment.

“They don’t break down in the landfills,” he said.

Bender, with the help of other farmers and nursery owners in the area, set up flowerpot recycling bins at the Beaver Hill Disposal Site and at Public Disposal & Recycling in downtown Coos Bay.

At first Bender took care of the flowerpot recycling areas himself, but soon found it too difficult to keep up with.

“What happened at Beaver Hill was people were filling the bin with trash,” Bender said.

Bender started a flowerpot recycling program at his own business and the Public Disposal & Recycling site was discontinued, but Westgaard kept up the Beaver Hill site.

She opened the site to accept all types of dirt- and debris-free flowerpots, whether they are ceramic, glass, metal or plastic.

“I just think it’s a very worthwhile thing for people to do — to recycle rather than just throw them away,” Westgaard said. “It’s a great way to reuse something.”

She is looking for volunteers who would be willing to help keep the flowerpot recycling area in order. Duties would include sorting pots by size and stacking them, keeping the area orderly and throwing away broken pots.

“I really don’t have the staff to put care into it,” Westgaard said. “It would be once a week, or once a month.”

Westgaard said she could also use someone who could build more shelving to expand the area.

Tracy Martz, a Master Gardener at the Coos County Oregon State University Extension Service in Myrtle Point, said she recommends the Beaver Hill flowerpot recycling center to other Master Gardeners. She explained that cleaning the pots is an important part of the process.

“It’s real important to bleach them and clean them before you recycle them,” Martz said. “Wash them in a little bleach water. Pots can carry disease and weed seeds if they’re not thoroughly cleaned before you reuse them again.”

Bender said he has incorporated flower pot recycling —only nursery-type plastic containers 1 gallon and larger size that are free of dirt and debris — into his daily routine. Smaller containers can be dropped off at the nursery, 755 S. Empire Blvd., in garbage bags.

“We still recycle about 20,000 containers a year at the nursery,” Bender said. “Most of us, we don’t think about it; we just throw them away. I always ask customers if they’re not going to use this, please bring it back.”