Waikato Times: A million plastic flower sleeves saved from landfill - meet the Waikato local behind it all
- theflowerloop
- Jul 29
- 3 min read
Updated: Jul 31
It took a mere three years for The Flower Loop’s founder Yasmin Wessels to save more than a million single-use plastic flower sleeves from landfill. Now, her initiative is set to bloom on the national stage.
Established in 2023 by a then 21-year-old Wessels, The Flower Loop operates as a closed-loop recycling service, collecting plastic sleeves from florists via dedicated recycling post bags and transforming them into new ones.
The initiative is now expanding nationally with 60 more florists, including the Flower Crate on Grey St in Hamilton, joining the 15 already on “the loop”.
Wessels, now 24, studies commerce and sustainability at Lincoln University but hails from Te Kauwhata. Her passion for flowers blossomed as she’d work weekends and holidays sleeving them for her parents’ business.
After working at the biggest flower auction in the country, seeing the use of plastic on an industrial scale sparked a desire to change.
"It just got to a point where I couldn't sleep at night. I'd be thinking about it and I was just like 'this is so terrible'," Wessels said.
After a dabble in using paper sleeves for her parents’ business, the discovery of a company in the Netherlands changed everything.
"I reached out to them and I thought 'this is exactly what has to happen here'. They hadn't heard from anybody in New Zealand... it just went from there and they were just like 'do you want to be on the payroll or do you want to start your own business'?"
"I've been quite lucky they've done all the development of the product and I can just sell it."
When florists buy their flowers from growers at auctions they’re typically sleeved in plastic, Wessels says. Instead of sending them to the tip, florists on "the loop" pay for recycle post-bags, with couriers delivering it to The Flower Loop's recycler in Auckland.
"They don't have to leave their shop to get involved and it fits into their current workflow... they don't have to change too much."
"We'll give them stats on how much plastic their shop has stocked and on the overall industry so they can pass that onto consumers.“
With national expansion only a couple weeks away, Wessels is stoked to be operating in florists in her home region.
The sentiment is shared by the Flower Crate's owner Alex Bedford. She said her store has been recycling soft plastics for 18 months, making it a no-brainer to sign up.
"I just think what she's doing is awesome. I really hope the commercial growers pick it up, like we've got a really big grower here in Cambridge,“ Bedford said.
Recycling has been a hot topic in Hamilton, with Hamilton East being named the worst recycling suburb by far according to council data.
"I know there's a cost involved but you have to weigh it off what the other cost is which at this stage in life far more important globally," Bedford said.
New Zealand's flower industry currently uses 20 million sleeves alone, with the lack of a financial incentive a main driver as to why initiatives like The Flower Loop haven't sprouted before.
"It's passion first and the impact you want to make. I really care about the environment," Wessels said. "It's my favourite place to be outside hiking and that sort of thing."
"It is a big thing to take on and for an individual florist or grower to do that would be really hard... Someone had to step up and I guess that was me."
From 1 August, florists, growers and wholesalers nationwide will be able to join The Flower Loop.
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