One of the main reasons we set up Gower Lavender was to create a business with nature and the environment at its heart. Probably like you, we’ve been reading (with growing alarm) about the climate crisis. It’s awful to read about struggling wildlife, the decline of insect populations and pollinators, rising temperatures, and what scientists are calling the sixth mass extinction. We feel helpless to change the big picture, but we feel there must be something we ca do here on Gower, and we feel that, maybe – if we all make some changes – that might add up to something big.
So here’s a little blog about what we are doing to try to be sustainable.
Growing lavender
We grow our lavender without pesticides and herbicides and try to minimise the amount of weeding we do in order to preserve habitats and protect the soil. We let weeds and native wildflowers grow up around the field edges. We also allow our lavender to flower before we harvest so pollinators get to feed from it all summer. Something’s working – we had rare rosy miner bees and also carder bumble bees nesting in our lavender this year.
Soap and ingredients
Natural ingredients are key to our soap – organic where possible – and we never use palm oil, as the palm oil industry has been so devastating for rainforests, wildlife and habitats across south east Asia, and responsible for the near-extinction of one of the world’s most iconic species, the orangutan.
We are also very aware of the human cost of industries such as mica mining, which is why we use micas that are produced in laboratories and certified ethical, so that we can be sure no child labour, forced labour or slavery was involved in its production.
We also source our ingredients from local suppliers wherever possible, and spend our business pounds locally on everything from wonderful local laver bread and Mumbles Beer to Welsh blankets and hand crafted soap dishes.
Soap boxes
It took us almost a year to find sustainable, compostable boxes, and to create beautiful designs that worked well on unbleached card. We loved working with local illustrator Hannah Davies, whose talent and vision helped us create the boxes we use today, with their iconic Three Cliffs cutout. That’s meant our regular sized soaps are completely plastic-free, vegan, ethical and animal friendly. And you can pop the box straight in the compost when you’re finished with it.
We should say, though, that our holiday-sized soap boxes, which are compostable and printed with vegetable inks like their big sisters – do have labels on them. This is a more efficient way for us to package these soaps as we don’t have to get so many different types of box printed up. However, there is a small amount of plastic used in the adhesive. We’d love to replace these labels with a plastic-free alternative, and we’re working hard on a solution for this.
Delivery packaging
For posting we use eco cardboard boxes, paper tape, paper packaging, eco jiffy bags and jute string – and we reuse packaging that’s been sent to us wherever possible. You can do your bit by reusing our boxes and packaging wherever you can. Otherwise, pop it in the recycling.
For self-pickup, we pack your order into a paper bag, which you are very much encouraged to reuse.
Postage
We have trialled fully compostable postage labels but unfortunately these did not perform well (the addresses rubbed off and we lost a lot of parcels in the post!). So we have gone back to using regular paper labels. Sadly the adhesive on these does contain a small amount of plastic. We’re working on a solution but would love to hear from you if you know of a good, plastic-free label we could try.
Hand creams
We have chosen lightweight aluminium jars with screw lids for our hand creams. These are a great material for packaging liquids as they are lightweight, which means they have a lower carbon footprint than other containers such as glass, while also being easily recyclable and tough. You may notice a small round seal in the lid of the jar. This is made from EPE, or expanded polyethylene foam, which is considered an eco-friendly material as it is easily recyclable into other plastic products such as insulation. As with our other labels, the ones on the jars of our hand creams do contain some plastic in the adhesive. We’d love it if you could think of ways to reuse these jars, but please do wash them out and recycle them once they’ve reached the end of their useful life.
One more thing. If you’ve received a hand cream from us in the post, you’ll have noticed it’s wrapped in a press-sealed biodegradable plastic bag. We really didn’t want to add single-use plastic into our packaging, but postal regulations are pretty strict, and we’ve discovered you need to wrap any liquids in a sealed layer if you’re going to post it. It was a relief to find these biodegradable bags. They are oxo-degradable, which means they break down in landfill into carbon dioxide, water, biomass and minerals in a matter of months rather than decades or centuries.
Scrubs, bath puffs, soap dishes
We buy plastic-free products that are made from sustainable materials such as jute, hema wood, ramie and other plant-based sources. These come from a wonderful global wholesaler that works with a network of small businesses across the world, ensuring fair prices and ethical working practices for workers.
We’re also looking to expand our network of local providers in the hope of minimising the travel miles of our products. We have recently started selling handcrafted wooden soap dishes made from British timber. You can check them out on our store.
Lavender sachets
Our Welsh blanket lavender hearts use reclaimed fibres that would otherwise go to waste, and are stuffed with natural sheepswool fleece. Their hanging loops are made from cotton (although older models used reclaimed satin ribbon, which does contain some plastic – we’ve now phased these out). At the end of their useful lives they are completely biodegradable.
We’re currently working on a range of vegan, plastic-free lavender sachets for our vegan customers.
Water and power
Even our water and power are as eco-friendly as we can made them. We harvest rainwater in two water butts on site, and this is what we use to water our lavender in the summer months. Our electricity and gas is provided by Ecotricity, and our work vehicle is a petrol hybrid.
Our dream
As you can see we are definitely an ultra-low plastic business, though we haven’t quite managed to achieve our dream of being a completely zero-plastic business – yet! We are still working hard to phase out the remaining plastic in our range and welcome your suggestions.
What we have learned is that this is a huge challenge for every one of us. It’s been a real eye opener to find how difficult it is to eradicate plastic from our business. There are no easy answers – every decision has to be weighed up and often we’ve had to choose between two less-than-ideal options.
We promise to keep researching, reading, experimenting, and being honest with you, our customers, about where we are on our journey. Please do get in touch if you have any ideas about things we could try.
Rae and Phil