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Of all the industries you might suspect of greenwashing, floristry is probably not at the top of the list. And yet, hidden behind floral wreaths, arches and centerpieces is floral foam, a crude oil-based plastic. It is neither recyclable nor compostable and decomposes over hundreds of years into toxic microplastics.
In the EU, an estimated 15,000 metric tons of floral foam are used each year and sent to landfills, equivalent to 2.5 billion plastic bags. “It’s shocking,” says Dundee Butcher, co-founder and CEO of foam labswhich has been developing a sustainable alternative for almost 10 years.
Butcher, who was once a florist in London’s Marylebone, remembers huge deliveries of floral foam before events. Facing a particularly large tower, he said to his manager: “Is this really the best we can do?” “There’s nothing better,” they told him, “but if you come up with something, you’ll revolutionize the floral industry.”
Years later, while running a flower school in California, Butcher met Professor Marc Hillmyer, director of the Center for Sustainable Polymers at the University of Minnesota. Hillmyer was working with polylactide, a bio-based plastic that he thought could solve the flower industry’s big problem. He went to work developing Phoam, now a patented technology. The foam is dense and rigid enough to hold flowers in place, absorbs enough water to keep them alive for seven days, and can be re-moistened and reused.
Developing a sustainable The product, Butcher says, is about where it comes from and where it ends up. Traditional floral foam is petroleum based. Phoam, on the other hand, is made from corn grown in Nebraska. Foam is sent to landfills or washed into the oceans, where it has been shown to harm marine life, while Phoam completely biodegrades in 25 days and is currently being certified for use in industrial composting. “They called us and said, ‘You’re not going to believe this, but Phoam is degrading faster than the flowers it was used for,’” Butcher smiles.
Demand has been growing since 2017, when florist Rita Feldman started the #NoFloralFoam movement on Instagram. In 2021, floral foam was permanently banned from the Chelsea Flower Show. Feldmann, who now heads the Sustainable Florist Network, is impressed by Phoam’s technology, but warns that industrial composting is not always available. “This product has potential in the future of sustainable floristry once effective composting systems are implemented and common phenolic foam is banned,” he says.
Last September, Phoam Labs won the “Most Sustainable Florist Innovation Award” at the Interflora World Cup. Its goal is to reach the market this summer. “People are just breaking down our doors because of this Phoam,” Butcher says, “so we want to bring it to light.”