Sustainable Packaging: picture of raffia with paper tape and pine cone.  💌Free delivery on orders over £30.  Rosemary Wild:an eco-friendly store supplying contemporary quality cotton fabrics.  Recycled packaging 🌿

SUSTAINABLE PACKAGING: RAFFIA

🌿RECYCLED PACKAGING: RAFFIA 🌿 I spent a long time looking into my packaging to ensure that it has a low carbon footprint, is recycled and is recyclable.  In this post, I would like to focus on the raffia which I use to tie up the bundles of fabric.

🌿Raffia is a straw-like material that is gained from a palm tree. It originated in Madagascar but has since been grown in other parts of Eastern Africa  

🌿The trees can grow up to 16 m (52.5 ft) tall and has the longest compound pinnate leaves in the plant kingdom.  They can grow up to 25 m (82.38 ft) long and 3 m (9.84 ft) wide!   

🌿The raffia we use is made by the local harvesters cutting the green leaves of individual palm fronds.  Once the leaves are cut, they are left out in the sun to dry out. The sun causes the long leaves to turn into brown strings.  After they are dried out, they are sorted by size and quality. Once they are sorted, the strings can be left as they are or dyed different colours.

🌿I choose undyed raffia as then it is truly biodegradable and compostable with no potential confusion about synthetic dyes being used on a natural product.  Raffia is very sustainable and does little harm to the environment as long as it is all natural.

🌿I hope you enjoy receiving your bundle of fabric wrapped up in the raffia.

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