Creative newspaper recycling – plant pots made from waste paper

Mar 17, 2013 | do it yourself, Love, urban gardening

So, it’s that time again. The sowing season is starting, and we’ve already prepared 100 seed pots. They fit perfectly on our homemade seed table (formerly a lawn table, but that’s another story). And because seed pots are such a great way to save money and do something good for the environment, we’ve decided to provide you with an illustrated guide to making recycled paper pots right away. We look forward to your feedback! By the way, you can find a similar wooden stamp to the one we used, here on Amazon for just about 10 euros.*

Here’s a brief list of the necessary utensils:

  • Old newspapers
  • Scissors
  • Something to wrap around, like a deodorant can or similar. In the pictures, we are using a press from Manufactum, but you really don’t need it. A simple deodorant can will do! [Edit: a narrow glass bottle is even better suited, thanks Lina Luna for the tip]

 

Newspaper Upcycling
Recycled paper as a building material.

The first step is cutting. You take the double page of a daily newspaper, halve it at the center fold – that is, from top to bottom. Then you halve the resulting single pages again in the middle from left to right, and do the same again with the resulting strips. So, from one double page, we have cut into two single pages and from each single page into four paper strips. According to our calculations, that’s a total of eight planting pots from one double page.


Rolling the seed pots.

In the next step, we lay the roll on the paper strip, such that the bottom end of the paper protrudes. This excess will later be folded inward to form the bottom of the pot. How much needs to protrude depends on the diameter of the wrapping tool used. A general rule could be:

Half the diameter of the roll plus half to a full centimeter. It all sounds much more complicated than it is, and since you can’t really break anything: just give it a try!


The newspaper strip is completely rolled up.

The newspaper strip is completely wrapped around the roll. It’s important that the newspaper strip fits tightly.


The protruding edge is now folded into the center.

As you can see in the picture above, the protruding edge of the newspaper strip is now folded all around into the center. It’s best to start with the end piece of the paper strip and work your way around.


Now quickly press the bottom together …

Next, the bottom of the recycled seed pot is quickly pressed together. With the Manufactum press used here, a corresponding wooden part is included. However, as mentioned above, it really works well without and can be done on any solid surface. Then, you just need to gently pull the finished pot off the wrapping tool and, if necessary, press the bottom from underneath in the center a bit upwards. Tadaaaaaaa: The recycled paper seed pot is ready.


The finished seed pot – completely recycled and guaranteed plastic-free.

Have fun with upcycling and sowing!

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