The Real Cost of a Rose
August 28, 2024 | 1 min to read
The beautiful blooms purchased at supermarkets often come with a hidden cost. Many flowers in Austrailia travel long distances from carbon-intensive greenhouses or mega-farms, where workers may earn as little as $8 a month. While growers can make up to $4 per stem for some flowers, others receive a mere 14 cents. As a result, consumers may unknowingly support practices that are neither ethical nor sustainable when choosing their floral arrangements.
The beautiful blooms we buy at the supermarket check-out can sometimes have a hidden price.
In life’s big moments, we often reach for a bouquet of flowers, but many of us might not know what it takes to get them into our hands. Many of the flowers sold in Australia have been flown around the world before they get to us, kept in cold containers for hours, or even days.
The blooms might have been grown in a high-tech, carbon-intensive greenhouse in Europe, or at an African mega-farm and often picked by workers making less than the minimum wage. In one bouquet, the grower might make $4 a stem; another farmer will make just 14 cents for each of theirs.
Some of the women harvesting our orders will make just $8 a month, human rights groups say. At the supermarket till, we might not always be buying flowers that are ethical or sustainable.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: ABC News