Archive for the ‘Consumer Products’ Category

There’s something in the air

Some of the reading I’ve been doing lately involves toxins in the environment, and I came across a term that hadn’t really made it onto my radar yet- “polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons”. I’m familiar with the idea of hydrocarbons, especially with regard to various fuels we use, but PAHs (as they are abbreviated) I am less […]

Posted January 14, 2017 by Mirka Zapletal in Consumer Products, Pollution

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A sustainable rose would smell as sweet

Over the past few weeks, I’ve learned that there are a number of environmental and social concerns around the farming of cut-flowers- there are questions about pesticide and water use, about the impacts on families and communities, about poaching and introduced pests. But there are also quite a few organizations working to improve the conditions […]

Natural born flowers

In my last post I talked about some of the environmental concerns surrounding the cut flower industry, namely pesticides, water use, and the movement of parasites and diseases. While there are many other facets to growing flowers for bouquets, I want to highlight two other issues, both of which I think we can influence: wildflower […]

The smell of pesticides in the morning

I had been a little worried that I wasn’t going to be able to find much research concerning the cut-lower industry, or that, if I did, it would all be about developing new varieties of popular flowers. In fact, I was surprised at the extent of the literature- researchers have been paying attention to multiple […]

Hoping to say it with flowers

When I started thinking about a blog topic for this month, I looked back through the posts from the last few months and noticed that my last four topics have centered on animals. Probably a good idea to show plants a bit more appreciation, and it is February after all- pictures of flowers are pretty […]