Few items come without an ecological cost. With each product that’s made, something is taken from the environment in order to create it. Even innovative inventions like polytunnels, created to produce greenery and make clean living possible, will have an ecological cost from the building to the delivery of the product.

But what do these costs involve when it comes to polytunnels? Are they still a sustainable force despite a drawback or two? Is the ecological cost worth it?

Consequently, let’s have a go at answering these lines of enquiry below.

The costs

Polytunnels are associated with clean environments and healthy eating, with users growing a variety of vegetables and plant life within them. Still, this doesn’t mean polytunnels are 100% helpful to the environment across all bases of consideration. After all, is anything at the end of the day?

Lorries and/or vans will be required to bring the polytunnel to the buyer’s door, and they’ll pump out emissions during transit. Not only this but depending on the supplier, less reputable sellers will likely have less environmentally friendly practices when making their own offerings; increasing carbon costs, poor disposal of plastics, lack of onsite recycling during the build, etc.

Of course, it’s worth stating that each of these drawbacks is perfectly avoidable. The responsibility of those making and using them here is the deciding factor between whether polytunnels have a notable ecological cost. So, now only that big question remains…

Are polytunnels worth it?

Obviously, despite the few drawbacks listed above, polytunnels are certainly still a worthwhile investment! Companies like Premier Polytunnels offer only the highest quality personal or commercial use polytunnels and take their role here extremely seriously. No excess plastic waste, with experts on standby for customers before and after sale to ensure they’re well looked after.

The long-term effects from their usage are plentiful; for example, if you’re growing your own food then you needn’t take as many trips to the shops, thereby drastically reducing your carbon footprint. In the end, polytunnel interest has been growing since around 2016, and it’s easy to see why. They avoid the common pollution problems that plague mainstream agriculture and the food industry and instead purify the process of creating and consuming foods.

Conclusion

In the end, any ecological costs are arguably less to do with the polytunnels themselves, and more to do with how people construct, transport and use them. So long as you utilise the services of a reliable polytunnel company, you’ll encounter absolutely no problems at all.

This is a contributed post and may contain affiliate links