Eco-Valentine's Day: Flowers

The bad news: Conventional flowers often aren't very lovingly grown. Heavily sprayed with toxic and chemical pesticides, these flowers are sometimes produced via exploitative labor. The good news: Socio-eco-friendly flowers are getting easier to find every year! Get sweet-smelling ones, untainted with pesticides or exploitative labor. Your options:

Local: Hit your nearest farmers market! Make friends with your neighbors while supporting local agriculture and economy.  Plus, your fresh flowers won't have accrued tons of carbon emissions from traveling halfway around the world. Bonus: You can find out directly from the seller where your flowers are from, and how they were grown.

Can't make it to the market? Get local, organic flowers at the click of a mouse from California Organic Flowers. The selection isn't wide, but the flowers are grown in Chico, Calif. and certified organic!

Organic: Why organic? Because you don't want your Valentine to be part of the problem: Roses dumped in fungicide to pass border inspections, all sorts of health hazards for people working in big flower companies, the runoff from pesticide and fertilizers used on flowers … Read Amy Stewart's Flower Confidential for more details -- or simply look for organic certified flowers when you shop. Many local flower shops have started to carry them.

Fair trade: Finally, fair-trade flowers have hit the U.S. market! Here's a way to make sure your flowers were produced by workers paid a fair wage, who also receive a fair-trade premium for community development (more details here). And while no fair-trade AND organic-certified flowers are available yet, these flowers do have to meet higher environmental guidelines regarding pesticide use. Unfortunately, you can't find them locally -- But 1-800 Flowers and samsclub.com are open 24-7 to serve your fair-trade flower needs.

VeriFlora: While not as stringent as fair-trade certification, VeriFlora-certified flowers also meet some minimum environmental and social criteria. And many VeriFlora-certified farms in the U.S. and Canada (fair-trade certification only applies to products produced in Third World countries) have gone beyond the minimum requirements to get organic-certified too. These flowers are getting easier to find at local retail locations; Trader Joe's has VeriFlora and organic-certified tulips sometimes.

If in a pinch, you can order from Organic Style; The top photo's a bunch of VeriFlora roses offered. Some bouquets even support a charity cause. (Note: While all of Organic Bouquet flowers are VeriFlora-certified, only a few, like these White Calla lilies, are organic-certified. Be sure to read the product description if you're looking specifically for organic flowers).

Reusable: These recycled paper flowers, made of eco-friendly materials in Thailand under fair-trade conditions -- could be the Valentine's gift that lasts year 'round.

Which option's best? That depends on so many different factors -- the water usage at farms, the mode of transport for flowers, the fair labor standards of various countries, etc. Plus, some of these criteria just can't be compared. How do you weigh the exploitation of farm workers against, say, the degradation of our environment -- and say one's more important than the other?

Trying to find the "best" option at a certain point gets to be unproductive, especially at this moment, when all of these options combined still make up only a teensy percentage of the flower market. I generally go with local, partly because I like buying from close to the source, partly because I'm at the farmers market regularly and I find it convenient. I'd go with the one that appeals to you for whatever reason, and/or is the most readily available for your situation.

Don't forget the eco-vase for the flowers. A couple pretty ones: A red recycled glass vase (right, $28) and a hand-crafted recycled copper vase ($47.99).

Photos and images courtesy of Organic Style, TransFair USA, VeriFlora and 3R Living

Comments

[m]

Don't forget about live potted flowers/plants too!

[Vectorpedia (Rick)]

Great idea......I'm going to send my girlfriend eco-flowers

[Karen @ Wiggly Wigglers]

Some great ideas here. Local and, if possible, organic are the best.