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Are pot plants more eco friendly than cut flowers?

When your dedication to cut flowers rivals Elton John’s, the eco dilemmas come thick and fast. The global horticultural industry is huge. At the Aalsmeer flower auction in Holland, 20m stems change hands every day. In the week before Valentine’s Day 200m red roses will pass through this behemoth (yes, we really are that predictable). Most of your flowers will travel via this place.

But their origins will be much farther flung. The main exporters are Kenya, Ethiopia and Colombia. Given that many producing countries with the right climatic conditions to grow at this scale are also water-scarce and low-wage economies, there are myriad ethical issues. So look for certification – the Fairtrade logo is on a number of flowers – or there’s Florverde, an eco-certification programme for flowers from Colombia. Check baseline standards and suppliers at ethicaltrade.org.

Scale and price mean we’ve lost grower co-operatives (especially in the Netherlands) as flower farms are acquired by global conglomerates. What a shame. The supply chain of everyday flowers is eye-popping, as blooms are trucked to Nairobi then flown with a stopover in Saudi, where the plane might be cooled with a hosepipe. Airfreighting flowers has been likened by industry insiders to “flying compost heaps”. These are perishable goods that once on a pallet in a plane begin to rot.

Click here to read the complete article at www.theguardian.com.
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