We are lucky to live on such a beautiful island.

But it is an island, a small island with lots of people making lots of trash every day, and we're running out of space to put all that trash. It's probably a good idea to think about alternatives to throwing things away.

Next time you're inclined to toss that cracked plastic foam cooler or that faded five-gallon bucket, think about how you might recycle it. One way to reuse containers is to grow your plants in them.

At Kapi'olani Community College, plastic foam coolers from shipments of fish were diverted from trash bins to the garden to grow herbs for culinary classes. The herbs benefit from the insulating effect of the coolers that keeps plant roots from getting too hot. Holes are easily poked into the bottom of the coolers to allow the good drainage that many herbs need.

At the University of Hawai'i's Urban Garden Center in Pearl City, food buckets headed for trash bins were collected to grow spices such as ginger and 'olena (Hawaiian turmeric), both of which grow particularly well in containers and can even outperform plants in the ground.

Advantages of growing ginger in buckets include being able to easily control and maintain optimum levels of moisture, sun and wind exposure, and soil composition. Ginger requires an abundant supply of water while actively growing and dry soil conditions at harvest. Ginger grown in buckets can avoid damage from root-knot nematodes, which are microscopic roundworms that live in many Hawai'i soils and feed on parts of the plant that are underground. Best of all, ginger planted in a bucket is very easy to harvest by simply dumping out the bucket contents and washing off the potting mix without damaging the edible rhizomes.

To read more about growing ginger, visit the UH College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources' Farmer's Bookshelf at www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/fb/ginger/ginger.htm.

Growing plants in containers is a great way for folks who don't have big yards or don't have any yard at all to be able to enjoy things like plucking fresh basil leaves whenever they are needed, gathering fresh oregano for home-made salsa, or just brushing past rosemary or lavender plants to release soothing aromas into the air.

To learn more, visit the Urban Garden Center for the monthly Gardening In Hawai'i program — on various topics in tropical gardening — on the second Saturday of each month. From 9 a.m. to noon today, Kapi'olani Community College culinary arts instructor Dale Thomas will demonstrate how to use some of the herbs and spices grown in recycled containers. Learn how to grow and use these herbs and spices.

Visit www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/ougc or call O'ahu gardener experts at 453-6055 for more information.

Ann Tanaka is a volunteer and certified O'ahu master gardener with the UH CTAHR Cooperative Extension Service since 2006. Jayme Grzebik is an urban horticulturist with the extension service; reach her at grzebik@hawaii.edu.