Roses are Red, But Make Valentine’s Day Green

Ishani Agrawal, 10th grade

1/30/2026

With Valentine’s Day rapidly approaching, love is in the air! Valentine’s Day is the most romantic holiday of the year, and it is an opportunity for loved ones to get together and celebrate with their community. Unfortunately, as with most things, Valentine’s Day also contributes to a wide array of significant environmental impacts. 

One of the largest environmental impacts from Valentine’s Day is the rose industry. Every year, Americans spend roughly $2 billion on flowers alone. From elaborate floral arrangements to casual bouquets at the grocery store, roughly 80% of roses come from Latin America, leading to high carbon emissions for transport to the United States. Additionally, roses are grown with harmful pesticides which have lasting impacts on the soil and fauna in the surrounding area. To top it all off, roses are packaged in plastic wrappings, all of which will be discarded once the flowers are taken out, resulting in even more plastic waste littering our environment. Even after the flowers are gifted, many roses die within weeks of Valentine’s Day, further increasing the waste generated by this industry. What started off as a romantic gift ends up as a discarded stem and plastic wrap in a landfill, leading to hundreds of tons of generated waste.

Additionally, boxes of chocolates also contribute to steep environmental impacts. Chocolate has high carbon emissions because it is most often imported into the United States from other countries. Furthermore, one common growing practice in the chocolate industry, specifically in West African regions where chocolate thrives, involves mass deforestation to make space for the cocoa tree. Lastly, similarly to the roses, chocolates are oftentimes wrapped in plastic or non-recyclable packaging, culminating in increased waste and plastic in landfills.

Accessories like necklaces and earrings are sourced from the fast fashion industry, which is known to produce high carbon emissions, result in soil contamination from the materials, and contribute to ocean pollution. Even smaller presents like greeting cards lead to increased landfill waste. With on average 145 million greeting cards exchanged a year on Valentine’s Day, many end up in landfills after the holiday. Practically all the materials included in these cards—plastic, adhesives, glitter— are not biodegradable.

This year, make a change in how you celebrate! Use the following tips to transform your Valentine’s Day into a fun, sustainable, and still festive holiday:

1. Buy locally grown flowers. Resources like the Slow Flowers website (https://www.slowflowers.com/) provide local farms to buy flowers, reducing transportation emissions. Though the flower may not be a rose, it will be beautiful nonetheless! 

2. Gift a houseplant, which will last longer than roses. Bonus: Houseplants are also known to improve mental health!

3. Make a homemade gift to reduce transportation emissions and fast fashion waste.

4. Gift an experience instead of a material good, such as a trip to the park or volunteering together.

5. Instead of gifting chocolate, make a homemade dessert and/or meal. There are hundreds of online resources for delicious and easy Valentine’s foods. Check out Food Network for homemade recipes and Sally's Baking Addiction for Valentine’s desserts!

Works Cited

Hoskins, Levi. “Action of the Week: Sustainable Valentine’s Day Guide.” Florida Museum, Thompson Earth Systems Institute, 12 February 2025, https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/earth-systems/blog/action-of-the-week-sustainable-valentines-day-guide/. Accessed 20 January 2026.

Valle, Gaby Del. “Valentine’s Day flowers are bad for the planet.” Vox, 12 February 2019, https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/2/12/18220984/valentines-day-flowers-roses-environmental-effects. Accessed 20 January 2026.