Happy New Year!! (Unfortunately there are no photos
or funny pictures today as the blogger program does not want to load
anything...bad blogger!!)
I would like to touch on the subject of New Year’s
resolutions. I have been reading and thinking about the
benefits of recycling, the environment and the general well being of fauna and
flora. With the New Year I finally took action.
We enjoy the beautiful flowers nature gives us, but
we do not always return the favour. I have come to realise that we, as
florists, have a big responsibility to keep our carbon footprint as small as
possible. Without the beautiful flowers nature provides we would be stuck in a
tiny grey office on the 25th floor - any florist’s nightmare!
All the products florists use to make the
arrangements our clients buy are disposable; it's not something you would keep
for a long period of time. Once the flowers die you throw the baskets, plastic
wrap, oasis, green florist bowls away. Most of these products end up at the
rubbish heap and gets buried at the landfill site. Out of sight, out of mind is
how the saying goes. Cape Town, alone, produces 6000tons of waste PER DAY! To
put it into perspective, that is 1.7 to 2kg of waste per person per day (1).
One ton of waste will fill a 3m x 2m room (to the ceiling) with waste (2).
Floral foam is the product I use to create
floral arrangements for table centrepieces, etc. I have always wondered what it
is made of and whether or not it is biodegradable. Sadly I learnt that it is
not biodegradable. After testing it on rats and rabbits (which breaks my
heart), they found it to be harmful to people when exposed to it over long
periods of time...like me. (3)
The basic "emergency overview" is that is "may be irritating to eyes, skin, and respiratory tract" (3). Personally I have not experienced any of these symptoms.
The basic "emergency overview" is that is "may be irritating to eyes, skin, and respiratory tract" (3). Personally I have not experienced any of these symptoms.
It contains the following chemicals (which explains the abovementioned symptoms):
Formaldehyde - Formaldehyde is
highly toxic to all animals, regardless of method of intake. Ingestion of as
little as 30 ml of a solution containing 37% formaldehyde has been reported to
cause death in an adult human. Water solution of formaldehyde is very corrosive
and its ingestion can cause severe injury to the upper gastrointestinal tract. At
concentrations above 0.1 ppm in air formaldehyde can irritate the eyes and mucous membranes, resulting in watery
eyes. Formaldehyde inhaled at this concentration may cause headaches, a burning
sensation in the throat, and difficulty breathing, and can trigger or aggravate
asthma symptoms (4).
Barium Sulphates - Although soluble
salts of barium are moderately toxic to humans, barium sulphate is nontoxic due
to its insolubility. The most common means of inadvertent barium poisoning
arises from the consumption of soluble barium salts mislabelled as BaSO4 (5).
Carbon Black - is a material
produced by the incomplete combustion of heavy petroleum
products such as FCC
tar, coal tar, ethylene cracking tar, and a small
amount from vegetable oil. (6)
Although these products are all ingredients in
floral foam it should be taken into consideration that the extracted
discussion above relates to the chemicals in general and is not related to
their behaviour in the floral foam. These are not the only ingredients in
floral foam and therefore the ones mentioned above is only a small component of
the overall product.
Having one brick of floral foam in your house probably won't be harmful. Working in the factory that produces floral foam might be an entirely different situation.
Having one brick of floral foam in your house probably won't be harmful. Working in the factory that produces floral foam might be an entirely different situation.
At this stage I am looking for a biodegradable
replacement, but I cannot find any in South Africa. I have, however contacted a
company in the UK and enquired about the products they have available. They advised
me that they are working on the development of the product and will keep me
posted on their progress.
Well, there you have it. I think everyone agrees that this information should be printed on the box. Sadly it is not. My new year's resolutions are therefore to find
alternative ways of arranging flowers and in the meantime to continue to advise
my clients to please recycle the Oasis floral foam bricks, to keep it away from
children and pests and to dispose of it as soon as the arrangement has wilted
and died.
