Be Greener in 2025 – Gold Roses are a Great Start!
As we head into a new year, many will resolve to make 2025 one where they will embrace more eco-friendly ways. If you want to make an impact on the Earth’s wellness, then starting with greener roses is a great place to start. This year, instead of giving your loved ones flowers that will wilt and be gone, make holidays more special for the special ones in your life by giving them a gift that gives love forever. These are reasons to switch to our golden roses and quit feeding carbon-filled industries!
Supporting Foreign Growers
Most people give very little thought about where their flowers are grown. Ecuador and Colombia are the countries where most of the flowers sold in the US come from. Colombia leads the flower industry with an estimated 660 million stems being sold in 2020. Other top producers are Sri Lanka and Kenya with China becoming a major producer for the future.
Fuel and Refrigeration
Because there are fewer regulations and expenses in growing flowers overseas, they are often imported from foreign lands. That means it takes a lot of fuel to fly them in and those planes also have to be refrigerated, which adds to the carbon footprint of the flower industry as a whole. Although the ideal is to take the cut flowers from production to the purchaser in three to five days, by the time they reach the consumer, they have already lost 15% of their bloom.
High-Altitude Industrial-Scale Greenhouses
Producers must make a great amount of product to make a profit, so they must have a lot of room to grow. Many flowers are produced in high-altitude locations with industrial-scale greenhouse setups, so most flower farms are a minimum of 500 acres. That requires a lot of water for drought-prone locations, which taxes the local water supply and the communities that rely on it. In many places, reports are that nearly half of all the water for such communities is used to produce flowers.
Pollution and Pesticides
It doesn’t just take a lot of water to meet the flower industry demand in foreign lands; it takes fertilizers and pesticides. When you have farms that encompass over 500 acres, that leads to a high degree of water runoff, contaminating ground, and drinking water. When you combine that with the pollution of greenhouse gases used to get the flowers where they need to be, that makes something really pretty not so pretty for the environment.
Local Communities are Hugely Impacted
When flowers are treated with chemicals and pesticides, they run off into the drinking water of communities surrounding the producers. Researchers have found that children living close to flower farms have exhibited short-term brain activity. Also, workers at these farms are exposed to the toxins, carrying them on their clothes and shoes and contaminating their families.
If you resolve to be greener in 2025, switching to gold roses is a great start. Not only will your loved ones love getting a rose that lasts forever; they will appreciate that you have lessened your collective carbon footprint. Make 2025 the year that you switch and make your loved ones happy too! Check out our inventory today!