Maybe We Won't Say It With Flowers
by Bonnie Alter, London on 06. 5.06
Sending flowers has become the easy way to respond to every social situation: thank you’s, apologies, birthdays, seductions, mother’s day, valentine’s day... But when you start to think about where the flowers come from and at what cost, this begins to sound like a bad idea. The first problem is the vast amount of water that these huge flower farms use—more than 80,000 litres a day. Many of the growers are in African countries, such as Kenya, where the local people are suffering from droughts and lack of pure water, whilst the farmers are diverting it to grow over 52 million tons of flowers. Then there are the pesticides—since we all want pure, unblemished flowers to send to our sweeties, farmers are using lots of toxic chemicals and fumigants to kill off bugs. These chemicals may end up as poisoned groundwater and contaminated subsoils.
The flower farm workers are often not protected against the chemicals which are easily inhaled, particularly while working in poorly ventilated greenhouses. For example, two thirds of Colombian flower workers suffer from pesticide-related problems. Workers are paid very poorly and child labour is rampant—the ILO (International Labour Organisation) of the UN estimates that 48,000 children work on flower farms in 2 Ecuadorian provinces alone. Only 3 companies out of hundreds in Ecuador are unionised. Then there are the air miles. Roses are flown 5,500 miles from South America, orchids 6,000 from Thailand. All in all—grow your own, or try some FairTrade chocolates instead. :: The Ecologist
For those that want to send flowers still, there are organic alternatives. www.organicbouquet.com is one, or you can alwasy cut them fresh from a local gardener or CSA. Do your homework first and make sure they don't use the nasty chemicals.
yes, the conventional flower industry is pretty awful. But why not at least suggest an alternative? organic bouquet is available in every wholeFoods, WildOats and online and in Wurope you can go to Fresh & Wilde (now wholefoods) or one of the many purveyors of certified organic flowers (heres a small list)
I second the recommendation for Organic Bouquet -- I haven't recieved them myself, but the people I've sent them to all rave about the flowers. Price is totally competitve with mainstream florists, too.
I've had a good experience with Organic Bouquet
http://greenerside.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/05/luckily_i_order.html
I've started buying people trees instead, ones planted in new woods. In the UK i use http://www.woodland-trust.org.uk/
It's only good for certain people and you cant do it too often for them but it's saved a few bouquets so far.
All of my parters throughout my life have known not to get me cut flowers. Instead, they bring me on dates to places with live flowers (a wildlife preserve, for example), or get me perennial plants in bloom (which I can add to my own garden). Such clever and environmentally responsible men!
Maybe a good alternative would be a painting of flowers- :)
Oh well, when you put it that way. I guess, if certain measures were upheld and monitored, we would never get to the point of absolutely not buying flowers.