Guest Post: The Plant Rescue Box Initiative

Sarah Gerrard-Jones who highlights her project to reduce waste in the houseplant industry.

Hello, 

I’m Sarah Gerrard-Jones, author of The Plant Rescuer - The book your houseplants want you to read, and founder of The Plant Rescue Box Initiative, a scheme created to help reduce plant waste.

Plant production is a multi-billion pound industry, and with it comes all the environmental costs associated with mass production: energy and water consumption, peat consumption, chemical use, emissions from air and freight travel, not to mention the amount of non-biodegradable plastic used. Those of us who buy plants like to think of our hobby as being ‘green’, but plant production has a large environmental footprint, made even greater by our unwillingness to accept anything but absolute perfection. Plants are green, but plant production is not.

It’s troubling to think about the harm that growing plants on a massive scale has on the environment - fossil fuel consumption, neonicotinoid pesticides, water and peat consumption - all of which are wasted when a plant is discarded. Plants considered unsuitable for sale because of an 'imperfection' are thrown away in their millions. Most of us agree that throwing away vegetables because they’re wonky shouldn’t be an acceptable practice, and yet plants are being discarded on a massive scale for the same reason.

It's this senseless waste that the Plant Rescue Box Initiative aims to address.

Whether you’re a retailer or consumer, you can help. As a plant retailer you can take a stand against this unacceptable practice by selling Plant Rescue Boxes. Not only does this stop the needless discarding of plants, but it also allows you to recoup lost earnings, shows that you are part of a movement committed to reducing waste, improves your eco credentials, and allows those on a limited budget to access plants that are normally unaffordable. Joining The Plant Rescue Box Initiative also gives you access to over 220,000 plant rescuers via my Instagram @theplantrescuer. Please email contact@theplantrescuer.com for information on how to join. 

If you are a keen houseplant hobbyist and would like to rescue plants please visit my website theplantrescuer.com or Instagram highlights to buy a rescue box from one of the 20 retailers in the UK and the USA. If you’d like your favourite plant shop to join the initiative please speak to them or contact me and I will do so on your behalf. 

With your support we can make this movement bigger and better, spreading the message that the most sustainable thing you can do is keep a plant alive.

This blogpost was taken from The Plant Ledger, my twice monthly email newsletter about the houseplant scene. Subscribe here and get my free in-depth guide to fungus gnats.