Dunking and re-purposing plant crates for use as risers in the greenhouse

Coordinator A... retrieved several plastic plant crates, I estimate around 30 of them, from a local commercial greenhouse. He intends to use them as plant risers in Collection Room 2, the ancient rainforest biome. The plants in that room grow especially well and often crowd each other out of light and space. His thought is to lift some of the plants up on risers to create layers of plants. This will allow some of the smaller plants access to air and light.

My task for the day was to clean the plastic plant crates. They had been sitting outdoors, collecting grit and leaves. Many of them had paper labels glued to them, which looked a bit unsightly for an academic greenhouse collection. The labels had to go too.

A... brought me to the special room for cleaning and sterilizing plant pots. The room has industrial sinks and hoses as well as large oven-like sterilizer machines. I used the sinks and hoses to clean the crates, then dunk them into an antiseptic soap solution, then finally rinse them again. The result was relatively clean crates, free from outdoor pathogens (largely), ready for use as plant risers.

Dunking seems to have been the word for the day. I had baked two-dozen almond biscotti and brought them for the crew. I wrote a note on the container asking that they be dunked, to avoid dental injuries!

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