Packaging

[goosey]

When I saw this little display at the Botanical gardens in Amsterdam, I thought it must have been to aid a class on utilising every day objects to plant in, and to show that you don’t have to use plastic pots which are not biodegradable and recycle what you have to hand. (I didn’t see any plastic pots here thinking about it, all the planters were like wooden barrels.)
(I do like how the Olive is growing in the plastic olive oil bottle)



But the sign with it made interesting reading – nothing new, I think we already knew this, but it isn’t in the fore front of our minds -

Without plants, we could not live. We use plants for food, medicine, cosmetics and clothes as well as for paint, building materials and as a source of energy. Different part of plants are used depending on their purpose: root, bark, stems, leaves fruit seeds and fibers.

Worldwide around 270,000 plant species are known. More than 50,000 of these are edible, and together they constitute approx ’80% of our food range. We mostly eat plants from the grass family (Poaceae, which include grain corn and rice, the legume family (Fabaceae, which include beans peanuts and soya), and the nightshade family (Solanaceae which include potatatoes, tomatoes and peppers).

The plants on these shelves are grown in the packaging of the products for which they are used.
Plants have often been processed to such a degree that you can no longer recognize them, but they can still be found on the list of ingredients on the packaging. The next time you go shopping ask yourself “How many plants do I use today?"