This blog post was written by Angelina Santos, a 2024 EarthEcho Marine Plastics Ambassador.

Since flowers are part of our lives and used as symbols for celebration— it is important to honor them. From birthday parties to weddings to valentines day— the purposes of flowers exceed aesthetics and have implemented themselves into our culture. Due to this fact, honoring the natural components of flowers through promoting the usage of brown wrapping paper— a sustainable alternative, that would grant flowers the protection from contributing to our plastics pollution issue. An issue that is harming our ecosystems and marine populations. By ensuring flowers remain natural and there are less plastics coming about from their existence, it would honor their contributions to nature— preservation, stability and life. My project is centered around awareness of floristry practices within New York City. I bring to light the issues concerning plastic usage in flower distribution and offer alternatives to licensed florists across the boroughs and even upstate.

For the project I created an outline for what I wanted to do. I initially wanted to reach florists across the city in person and email politicians part of the local Green Caucus. I ended up in contact with Sandy Nurse but shifted gears from in person reach to virtual. I constructed a brochure and virtually distributed them across nearly one hundred florists across the city. I searched through websites and accessed databases consisting of the phone numbers, addresses and emails of florist shops across the city. I then compiled a list of over one hundred emails and emailed them all individually about how they could shift towards greater sustainable practices in a pragmatic manner. I partnered with Sam Athey and she provided me with incredible sources and ideas for how I could approach florists. She also ensured that it is okay if my success rate is not one hundred percent as long as small steps are taken.

The number of people I have reached exceeds over a hundred which entails that over a hundred people have the idea of sustainable floristry implemented into their mind. Though I can not monitor their behaviors and ensure they follow through with these practices across their life— it is impactful to reach out to someone. This number includes those from an EarthEcho Valentines Day post I constructed, the emails and people who I have spoken to about this project in person.

Throughout this project, I learned that alternation and change is okay and that plans do not always have to be perfect. I did face a challenge of time and weather, being a college student during an emerging Winter made it more difficult to reach my goal but there was an impact made in unexpected ways.

Though the project is technically over, my commitment to mitigating plastics within floristry is not over, I will maintain contact with ever florists I had reached out to and discussed practices with themS it takes a while for some to reply— one took four months, but not everything can be changed suddenly.