Eco Friendly Flowers Brighton & East Sussex

It is really important to me that we as a planet work together towards sustainable ways of living. In recent years it has become so much more apparent how we are damaging our environment, I think we are all by now familiar with the issues surrounding single use plastics and the damage they are doing to animals and marine life. I have recently become fixated on the idea of being more eco friendly not only in the way I live my life outside of work but it is important to me to implement these ideas and ways of working into my floristry practice.

Floristry is a beautiful job, we create works of art with natural ingredients and it is a joy to work with flowers. I’ve been a florist for a long time, and really it has only recently entered my awareness just how much of a footprint our industry makes. I’ve long been pretty upset about the amount of plastic and cellophane used in the floral industry, flowers get delivered to shops this way and we remove the plastic to condition the flowers only to gift wrap them up in more plastic wrap before they go out the door to you!

So what am I doing to help?

• I am committed to using as many recycled and recyclable/biodegradable products as I can.
• I work completely floral foam free. Floral foam is a nasty single use plastic which will end up in landfill and will not biodegrade. More worryingly it is a micro plastic which will end up in our water supplies too. (read more about the issues of floral foam here)
• Continuing my education, taking courses and learning more eco friendly ways of working.
• Researching where my flowers are from and making sure I am happy with the way that the farms are run and that they are committed to sustainable and ethical flower production.
• Using as many British flowers as I can.
• Supporting local flower farms
• Composting all my green waste
• Recycling all materials I can – including paying for extra collections for plastics which my local council do not recycle.
• I wrap gift bouquets in brown paper and if they need water rather than a cellophane ‘aqua pack’ I use a glass jar or vase which is reusable 
• Delivering wedding flowers with as little extra packaging as possible (don’t worry I still pack them safely for transport!) anything I do use is recyclable.   

You can read more about my journey to being more environmentally friendly in these blog posts How to Plan an Environmentally Friendly Wedding and Going Green – Part One