Follow this plan for your most sustainable (and experience-filled) Valentines yet!
(gender neutral, everyday applicable, kids can join in!)
Wake up the sleepy head
Treat someone to breakfast in bed, full brownie points to start the day
Say it without the card
Grab a banana and a marker pen, “I’m bananas about you” will beat any paper card hands down
Or with 52 of them
(credit: wheresmollie.com)
Grab a spare deck of cards, write down 52 (or however many) things you love about them / want to remind them of and then hide them around the house. Fun for all the family.
Go on a date
Get foraging! Take a different approach to the well-trodden daily exercise excursion by looking at what you can find in the woods or hedgerows en route. (pick wisely and carefully, & best have a reference guide - we’re going for love potion not poison…)
Made with love
One to get the kids involved in, bake up some heart shaped goodies for afternoon tea
Promises, promises
Make every day a Valentine’s Day by filling a jar with small notes of something you promise to do for your loved one to be pick out once a week. The notes could be anything you choose from going for a walk together to you promising to cook a meal at home or making breakfast in bed. So many possibilities…
The way to the heart is
By supporting a local restaurant’s click & collect service. Whilst not guaranteed to be 100% waste-free, your treat is someone local’s livelihood.
Share a toast
Raise glasses of a sustainable tipple – a refilled growler from the local beer shop; a locally made wine, beer or spirit or go further afield to source a natural wine or sustainably made alcoholic or alcohol-free beverage.
This Valentines Day, we all deserve some love!
Treat yourselves and the whole family to some love sharing the sustainable, non-commercial, non-waste of money kinda way.
Why not say it with
Flowers…
With over 90% of roses (and most other flowers) being imported, the result of Valentine’s Day demand is a drastic increase of cargo planes across Europe and America. Then there’s the refrigerated transport and the thin plastic wrapping that can’t be recycled.
If you have to: visit your local farmers’ markets for local, in-season flowers, ask your local florist for local flowers
Cards…
Around 25 million Valentine’s Day cards are sent in the UK each year, equivalent to more than 8,000 trees
If you have to: make your own, buy a plantable seed paper card, find a local maker, printed on FSC (sustainable) paper, glitter free and not wrapped in plastic
Chocolate…
Over 36 million heart-shaped boxes of chocolate will be sold, most of which will have been grown in socially and environmentally unsustainable conditions: 70% of cocoa beans are grown in West Africa, where thousands of children are forced to harvest cocoa and 70% of illegal deforestation is linked to the drive for cocoa production.
If you have to: buy Fairtrade, non Palm Oil, packaged in recyclable foil & paper (e.g. Divine, Chocolatonys)
Fragrances…
Most perfumes are a mixture of some of the 4,000+ different synthetic chemicals that are used to produce fragrances and many are petroleum-derived. Not least bad for the planet, many are toxins and bad news for our bodies too.
If you have to: find a fragrance that’s made from 100% natural ingredients, refillable perfume (e.g. Eden)
Gifts…
Every year in the UK spend an incredible £650 million on gifts which we're are often generic or novelty Valentine’s Day gifts.
If you have to: replace with something your loved one really wants or needs; buy something of quality and reusable.
