Red roses for Valentine’s Day are very common and yet this simple gesture is an ecological and human disaster. Explanations.
Giving red roses (or another color) for Valentine’s Day is part of the customs. Yet growing roses is an ecological and human disaster, as the conditions of the workers and the way they are grown are dire. In fact, unlike food products, the production of flowers is not so regulated. Roses, for example, are imported from African countries such as Kenya, Ethiopia or from Central or South American countries such as Ecuador, Colombia or Costa Rica.
Workers there are over-exploited and very poorly paid, and live in constant fear of losing their jobs. Indeed, the ecological cost of this market means that European countries are turning away from Kenyan producers (first on the market) whose income depends on occasional festivals such as the Valentine’s Day or even Mother’s Day. Grown above ground in greenhouses, the flowers are stuffed with fertilizer and require a lot of water. According to the media Reporterre, a single Kenyan rose needs 12.3 liters of water when a single equatorial rose needs 18.1 liters of water. The flowers then transit to the sites of FloraHolland, the largest importer and distributor of flowers in the world. The transport of roses, from their place of cultivation to the Netherlands where they are supplied to France to be sold to florists, represents a monstrous carbon footprint.
Read also: Valentine’s Day: what if you sent a card to your friends?
Like the smell of pesticide in the air
As the regulations are not as strict as on a food product, pesticides and fungicides are used without restraint, the magazine 60 million consumers has also detected 15 per bouquet of roses analyzed. These substances are then inhaled through our noses when we breathe in the bouquet we have just received.
Opt for seasonal flowers
It is therefore important not to fall into the commercial trap of the bouquet of roses for Valentine’s Day and to opt instead for seasonal flowers such as mimosa, anemone or camellias. You can also offer a bouquet of dried flowers that will look very pretty and last longer. And if roses are really your favorite flowers, organic labels and producers – like the Fleur de France label or Ophaga bouquets – are trying to make the floral trade more ethical. The proof that ecological gestures are not so difficult to adopt, you just have to find more original alternatives and dare to think outside the box.