Valentine's Flowers and Environmental Damage

As Valentine’s Day approaches, an influx of cut-flowers make their way across the globe in energy-guzzling cargo planes.

It’s no wonder we call upon roses to convey romantic feeling: they have a relationship with love that can be traced back to the Classical period. In the story of Aphrodite and Adonis, the goddess of love pricks her finger on a thorn and turns a bush of white roses red, giving the rose mythology a possible origin. Since then, the blooms have played pivotal roles in works by Shakespeare, Yeats and Gertrude Stein.

But is our desire for flowers wholly innocent?

Concerns over the environmental impact of the flower industry may force you to reconsider your V-Day purchases.

Chemical Pollution

Most growers in the flower industry employ what is known as short-cycle production. This requires a high volume of agrochemicals which corrode the air, soil and water supplies of the countries who supply our flowers. This environmental impact of this disproportionately impacts poorer countries.

Energy

Once flowers have been cut, their life span reduces dramatically. To give them the best chance of reaching your loved one’s hands, they’re stored in energy-exhausting warehouses, shipped via cargo planes, and emptied out into a further series of temperature-controlled containers.

Cellophane Wrap

Fresh flowers are wrapped in one of the most environmentally damaging of all plastics. Cellophane wrap might look pretty, but the plastic around your bouquet greatly contributes to the overall impact of cut flowers on the biosphere. 9,000 tons of carbon dioxide is the cost of our appetite for Valentine’s roses, reports the Scientific American.

Disposable Culture

There may be something romantic about impermanence. But our desire for new, replaceable items also encourages a culture of wastefulness. And there’s nothing romantic about flowers when they’re rotting in a landfill, producing harmful quantities of methane.

Why not choose something less fleeting, more original and responsibly sourced? Our indoor plants live and grow with you: we think that's a pretty good way of saying 'I love you.'