A green Valentine's Day

by Annalisa Audino

Who is not engaged and uses the excuse "I detest S. Valentine", well, they can go to the following article. Who is engaged instead could appreciate some small suggestion to strike straight to the heart of her/his own sweety. Have you already bought the gift? It needs to get organized and to be original, so you can unite the pleasure and the profite and you can make an ecofriendly gift, that is to say not polluting, not built with the exploitation of children, but absolutely natural, eco-friendly and coming from checked places. Needless to say that the more usual gifts are flowers and chocolates. Don’t worry, you can be also original with these.

Sometimes in fact the boxes of the best chocolates appear very beautiful to the outside, but to the inside they contain some ugly surprises: not good ingredients, of unknown origin and without the suitable remunerations for the workers, that are very often children. Better aiming at a box of chocolates equitable-solidale, in which money directly goes to the producers and not to intermediary without scruples, but above all without surprises. In fact in this commerce they reenter only manufacturing that use natural products, without preservative or chemical additives. For the flowers there is instead a beautiful initiative in five Italian cities where St. Valentine takes the shape of real solidarity: the fair trade mobilizes all to say enough to the rights denied in the African (and not only) greenhouses and the Movement Flowers promotes the purchase of ecofriendly flowers.

In the shops of the cooperatives of fair trade that adhered to the initiative - "La bottega solidale" of Genoa, "Pangea. Niente Troppo" of Rome, "Ex Aequo" of Bologna, "Mondo Nuovo" of Turin, "Chico Mendes" of Milan - the responsible consumers can find the informative materials of the Movimento Fiori e dirittti (Flowers and Rights Movement) and, for the first time, "Fiore giusto" (Correct flowers) certified: the choice will be among a bunch of 10 roses from the Kenya certified Fairtrade, to defense of the rights in the plantations floricole of the South of the world, and a bunch of 5 Italian ranuncolis to mark Correct Flower, the first social and environmental certification for the agricultural sector in Italy. Both the compositions will be sold to the price of 10 €. Who wanted to depart from the seed and to make a symbolic gift they are instead original little envelopes of seeds (you find here the tender Love in to bag): they are ideal gift that symbolize the necessity of care, attention and respect, just as in a relationship.

If you want another type of gift instead you could buy a film: not a classical romantic film but a sort of documentary entitled "Earth from the Air", a vision of the natural beauties of the world produced by the photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand, done really for the occasion. The vision of the documentary could make to come the idea on the next romantic destination to visit together: besides if you will purchase the dvd from the site, you will pay it half price and the 10% of the proceeds will go to the humanitarian association Architecture for Humanity.

If you finally want to be traditional, as lingerie for a sexy eco evening, Inhabitat proposes a beautiful series of ideas gift, included recipes for heart shape cakes, lingerie of Lenpur (a material constituted by discards of the wood, but that to the touch it resembles a lot to the classical fabrics) and eco-friendly jewels.

To the gift it can’t miss a card. On-line you can find original e-cards. For the romantic ones that didn't want to abdicate the paper it is possible to purchase cards in recycled fiber or however certified FSC to defense of the forests. Many others tickets are linked to countries or to guardianship of environmental projects: all it takes is making a turn on internet and you will find them.

For a perfect Valentine's Day you shouldn’t miss a beautiful light candle dinner: the ideal would be at home, cooked together with love and natural, local products, but also in the restaurant it is possible to get a biological and local menù, with consequent demolition of the pollution.

So have you a romantic eco Valentine Day!