Florist News

All of the traders in our town (Newcastle Emlyn, Wales) are in favour of trying to cut down/prevent using plastic bags all together. We want to go further and try to source products that are eco friendly such as our cellophane, bags for handties and tissue paper etc. We only use recycled carrier bags and have done since we opened 6 months ago and recycle our green waste on the compost heap, but would love to know if anyone has found any eco-friendly products that we can use?

Fleur de Paris

Personally i'm not aware of an abundance of this kind of stuff available. Could be worth contacting a list of different suppliers/wholesalers to see if they're aware of any eco friendly products.
I'm not sure how popular they'd be either, obviously great for the environment but not very cheap i shouldn't imagine and there's still alot of people not interested in paying out more for the sake of being eco friendly. Kind of a shame really.

maple might be able to help I believe in Germany they have to use eco friendly stuff for all their funeral work etc

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Sarah Creating Bespoke Wedding Flowers Cheshire

true! EVERYTHING of funeral work has to be biodegradable! Our wreath bases are either made of wood or something we call 'biolit', its a biodegradable 'shell' made of paper and wood shavings. I get all of my stuff from the company "TU ES" (google it!) and alot of it is from oasis. We've even gotten pieces sent back to us from the grave-yard man because I used a plastic wreath bottom.
Some other stuff I think I've posted b4 but anyway:
-Raffia instead of polyribbon for tying
-only paper (and newspaper) to wrap flowers, cello costs 2€-good scare off for folks!too expensive!!
-all of our arrangements for weddings etc are made in or on glass/plastic trays/vases/pots that we take back and re-use unless the folks buy them
-as for trays and/or boxes to put garden plants in, we ask the local grocer to collect his fruit boxes which we pick up everyonce in a while for the customers to carry their plants home in, they usually drop them off again for us to re-use
(((thinking...there's more but don't know at the mo)))

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~success is a lousy teacher...it seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose~

Maybe slightly off on a tangent, but I have just completed a presentation on Veriflora which is a holistic approach to sustainable practices affecting the floristry industry. It is only available in America at the moment, I think, but makes for interesting reading, and I don't think it will be too long before the UK catches on.

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Hiya Deelite,

The new Val Spicer catalogue for 08/09 has some biodegradable funeral bases in, and oasis now do a biodegradable cello

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Many thanks for all your replies - good to see you Arum :-) I will certainly check out everything mentioned. I did find a company in Australia who could do the cello but there would be limitations due as far as designs which may not suit our market. Plus by the time we paid for it to be sent to the UK it would be way expensive. Wonder if a manufacturer in the UK would consider the idea.

Ive heard of the biodegradable cello too. Id like to do something similar. i hate giving out plazzy bags unless i really have to. I like some of the brown paper bags, but they need to be stronger!

Must admit, i use too much cello on stuff, id be more than happy to go with spidersweb style bio fabrics if they exist.

If you've shipped it all the way over here, it's likely to be less environmentally friendly than using normal cello. Think of all the airmiles. Size 13 carbon footprint!

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