It’s World Earth Day tomorrow (April 22) and one greeting card publisher in particular has been attracting considerable media attention with her innovative upcycling that delivers the plastic pollution message, one card at a time.
Finding herself furloughed during lockdown, Flora Blathwayt started making greeting cards incorporating bits of plastic she found beach cleaning on the River Thames into the designs. This has escalated to her setting up Washed Up Cards, initially just selling the cards on Etsy but now through a growing number of retailers with many more likely to follow given the recent surge in media interest.
A recent documentary on Channel 4 (True Stories: Trash to Cash) that aired a few days ago follows hot on the heels of coverage of Flora and Washed Up Cards on BBC Breakfast, BBC Radio 5 Live, Metro, Guardian, Huff Post, Main Online, Big Issue and Time Out.
From bottle tops to cable ties, bits of ketchup wrappers to broken buttons, Flora’s discarded plastic ‘treasures’ that she collects are then washed before being cut up and used to add colour to her ‘pun-tastic’ cards with the rear of the card including where the plastic element was found.
“Everything has been a bit of a whirlwind since the Channel 4 programme!” Flora admitted to PG Buzz.
The idea for the company was sparked after she made a wedding card for her sister (who had been living plastic-free) using micro plastic elements Flora had collected on a River Clean walk in 2019. This led on to Flora’s card making hobby before blossoming into her setting up the publishing business last May.
Flora hopes for Washed Up Cards is that by “spreading awareness of plastic pollution in this feelgood and engaging way, it will hopefully show people that little actions do make a difference.
Adding to the publisher’s environmental thrust, Flora has collaborated with the sustainable toilet paper brand Who Gives a Crap? and reuses the company’s quirky packaging to wrap her cards in before sending them out.
With interest in her cards growing, Flora is now recruiting people to help her make the cards and is also continuing to organise socially distant beach cleans to retrieve more plastic waste that will be put to good use on the cards.
To watch Flora on the Channel 4 programme click on the Facebook link below.
https://www.facebook.com/Channel4/videos/562233491377316/
Top: Flora Blathwayt on the River Thames ‘beach’.
