Choosing Homemade S/H Pots?

[schwing]

I've been growing Phals and Oncidiums in S/H for a couple years now and the roots are crazy! Repotted a Sharry Baby for a demo at my orchid society meeting and had to cut the pot apart because the roots were so thick!

Anyway, I was wondering what other people's thoughts are on choosing pots for S/H. I've been mainly using anything that was clear and plastic; party cups, gatorade bottles, bottom half of 2-liter soda bottles, etc.

And with a new baby, and reading stuff about "BPA free" bottles, I was wondering if I should be more picky with what I pot in to. What kind of plastics leech out, or possibly degrade? Is this even a concern? Since the "pots" are cheap, should I just repot in to a brand new pot and call it good?

Thanks for any thoughts!
-ken

[Zoi2]

I pretty much use the same kind of pots you do. I also use the opaque plastic coffee creamer jars and have never had any problems.
Joann

[Ray]

I think your concerns are misplaced - a single insect is likely a far greater threat to your plants than any chemical that can leach from plastic (unless you're considering using herbicide containers).

While I doubt that it has any impact on plants, BPA is primarily found in polycarbonate containers, and those are rigid and most-often used as refillable water bottles, not food-related ones.

Using the recycle code numbers can help:

1 - PET/PETE - polyethylene terephthalate - OK
2 - HDPE - high density polyethylene - OK
3 - PVC - polyvinyl chloride - probably OK, but you likely won't find a lot of those anyway.
4 - LDPE - low density polyethylene - OK
5 - PP - polypropylene - OK
6 - PS - polystyrene - OK, but probably too brittle
7 - Other - a catch-all that includes polycarbonates, so you may want to avoid these.