Skip the Flowers and Chocolates: Why We Need Some New Ideas on Valentine’s Day
I can’t remember ever having a traditional or model Valentine’s Day experience. But I do love my nontraditional memories—elementary school when you had to give valentines to everyone in your class so no one felt left out, so I left school that day with 20–30 valentines usually tied to Nerds candy, stickers, and other stuff only 7-year-olds think is awesome. Also each year, my mom made valentines for my sister and me, including one that we woke up to hanging on our doorknobs with a lace pocket full of handmade paper flowers.
But most people celebrate Valentine’s Day with a gift, and/or flowers, chocolates, and a nice dinner. In fact, 53% of the 80% of couples who celebrate Valentine’s Day feel they do the same exact thing every year, according to a new study by Groupon, released on Fox News this February. 26% of those surveyed find their traditions dull, to the point that they can predict their partner’s gifts.
Here are some reasons to ditch traditional gifts this year, even more than that they’re done and tired, as well as some new ideas for alternatives that may be even more romantic!
Every Rose Has Its Thorns
(I’m sorry I couldn’t help myself with that subtitle!) Most fresh flowers sold in the U.S. are imported from Colombia and Ecuador. While this industry without a doubt provides jobs, it comes at some cost. Here are some of the issues workers—who are majority women—in this industry face:
- Long Hours: Workers can work up to 60 hours per week, with “six to ten extra hours per day during the high season, which falls on the weeks leading up to Valentine’s Day,” says the says the Committee for Human Rights in Latin America. A 16-hour day is common, all the while under strict monitoring to keep up productivity.
- Low Wages: Salaries for greenhouse workers do not cover basic needs, according to the organization Women Working WorldWide, who studied 38,000 women working in horticultural farms in East Africa. These African countries are the main flower exporters for Europe, as Colombia and Ecuador are for the U.S. When Europeans purchase a rose, just 2% of the retail price goes to the people who grew it. These jobs have minimal benefits, and pay can be withheld; for example, one woman interviewed was suspended without pay for 4 days for requesting a statutory break for her and her fellow workers.
- Health Problems: High speed of work is demanded for productivity, which, coupled with the long hours, can lead to permanent damage to women’s wrists. Carpel tunnel syndrome, tendonitis, and other repetitive stress injuries are common among workers. Workers have more miscarriages than average, and more than 60 percent of all workers studied suffered headaches, nausea, blurred vision, or fatigue. Flowers are sprayed with herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides, and the exposure to toxic chemicals may be linked to increased cancer cases in workers, however official studies on this have not been funded.
Some flowers are starting to get a labeling system for sustainable farming practices, but these standards have not been widely systematized for flowers. Even with the most sustainable practices, a single rose, for example, needs 1–3 gallons of water to grow.
[See references at end of article.]
The Children Behind Our Chocolate
Unlike flowers, chocolate has clear labeling to indicate if it is fair-trade and slavery-free. Forced child labor in the cocoa trade (affecting several hundred-thousand youth approximately age 5–16) has gotten a lot of attention in recent years, and now activists and law enforcement officials agree that the numbers of children affected is falling (highest estimates were around 1.5 million), yet it is still happening. Cocoa farmers earn less than $2 per day, an income below the poverty line, so they resort to child labor to keep their prices competitive. Children are a target for trafficking because poverty drives them to be tricked into accepting jobs they are told have good wages, or even to be sold by their families.
Harvesting cocoa utilizes tools that are especially dangerous in the hands of youth and teenagers, including chainsaws and machetes. Applying pesticides and carrying heavy loads can also cause illness or injury.
Mars (M&Ms, Snickers), Ferroro, and Hershey have pledged to buy 100% of their cocoa from “certified” farmers (audited for sustainable and ethical practices) by 2020. Mondelez (Cadbury) is investing in training and supporting farmers. Nestle uses less than 25% certified cocoa. Until these major corporations have made more investments, let’s focus on delicious fair-trade chocolate as much as possible! One of my favorites is Theo dark chocolate with chile.
Ethical Gifts & Experiences as Gifts
In addition to chocolates from the list above, there are plenty of sustainable Valentine’s Day gifts—some ideas listed below. Also there’s nothing like a handmade gift (I know many disagree with this, but why?)! My favorites gifts I’ve received and given have been poems, stories, songs, and drawings about each other, for each other.
A Night to Remember
80 percent of people from the survey published by Fox New said they would love to have an experience as a Valentine’s Day gift, which they could share with their partner. This jives with a similar trend; millennials are prioritizing investing in experiences rather than material items. Requested experiences from the survey include:
Weekend getaway | Concert | Escape the room | Picnic (if weather allows) | Taking a cooking class | Going to a museum
Some that I personally recommend that cost varying amounts of $$: Couples massage | Do-it-yourself spa night with essential oils etc. | Do what you did on your first date |Dinner or lounge with live music | Bake something for them or bake together | Have a retro date (ex, old-school roller-skating rink) | Comedy show | Do an activity you both enjoy (ex, rock climbing) | Check if your city/town has special Valentine’s Day events!
Sustainable Shopping
- Go to a local bakery instead of just grabbing something at a chain store
- Buy some nice new grooming or self-care products for him or her
- Something from a local business or artist
- A book or a game that you can read, share, interact with together
- If you can’t travel this February, get a travel-related gift to get excited for next time
HAPPY ROMANCING, PEOPLE!!!
References:
- http://www.foodispower.org/slavery-chocolate
- http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/13/us/behind-roses-beauty-poor-and-ill-workers.html
- https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/feb/12/the-women-suffering-for-your-valentines-day-flowers
- http://multinationales.org/Where-do-our-flowers-come-from
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labor_in_cocoa_production
