Phoam Labs’ floral revolution
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Of all the industries you might suspect of greenwashing, floristry probably isn’t top of the list. And yet, hiding beneath floral wreaths, arches and centrepieces is floral foam, a crude oil-based plastic. Non-recyclable and non-compostable, it breaks down over hundreds of years into toxic microplastics.
In the EU, an estimated 15,000 metric tonnes of floral foam is used and then sent to landfill each year – equivalent to 2.5 billion plastic bags. “It is shocking,” says Dundee Butcher, co-founder and CEO of Phoam Labs, who has spent almost 10 years developing a sustainable alternative.
Once a florist in London’s Marylebone, Butcher remembers huge deliveries of floral foam before events. Facing one particularly large tower, she said to her manager: “Is this really the best we can do?” “There’s nothing better,” she was told, “but if you can come up with something, you’ll revolutionise the floral industry.”
Years later, while running a flower school in California, Butcher met Professor Marc Hillmyer, director of the Center for Sustainable Polymers at the University of Minnesota. Hillmyer was working with polylactide, a bio-based plastic that he thought could solve the floral industry’s big problem. He set to work developing Phoam, now a patented technology. Phoam is dense and rigid enough to secure flowers in place, it absorbs enough water to keep them alive for seven days, and it can be rewetted and reused.
Developing a sustainable product, Butcher says, is all about where it comes from and where it ends up. Traditional floral foam is petroleum-based. Phoam, on the other hand, is made using corn grown in Nebraska. Foam is sent to landfills or washed away into oceans where it is proven to harm marine life, while Phoam biodegrades completely in 25 days, and is currently being certified for industrial composting. “They called us up and said, ‘You’re not going to believe this, but the Phoam is degrading faster than the flowers it was used for,’” Butcher beams.
Demand has been growing since 2017, when florist Rita Feldmann started the #NoFloralFoam movement on Instagram. In 2021, floral foam was permanently banned from the Chelsea Flower Show. Feldmann, who now runs the Sustainable Floristry Network, is impressed by Phoam’s technology, but warns that industrial composting isn’t always available. “This product has potential in sustainable floristry’s future once effective composting systems are in place and regular phenolic foam is banned,” she says.
Last September, Phoam Labs won the “Most Sustainable Floristry Innovation Award” at the Interflora World Cup. They are aiming to come to market this summer. “People are just beating our door down for this Phoam,” says Butcher, “so we want to get it out there.”
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