Flora Blathwayt, founder of Washed Up Cards
(Picture: REUTERS)A woman furloughed during the coronavirus pandemic has launched a successful business based on rubbish scooped from the River Thames.
Flora Blathwayt, 34, was furloughed and later made redundant from her job at a company making sauces from unwanted fruit and vegetables.
Confined to London by lockdowns, she took part in a river clean-up and was struck by the colourful pieces of plastic that washed up on the muddy banks.
When Flora moved to Peckham in south east London, she sent a batch of plastic-decorated cards to nearby residents offering help if they were shielding from Covid-19.
Little more than a year on, she has made and sold thousands of greetings cards decorated with them.
“They were all the first washed-up cards,” she said. “Some of my neighbours were like ‘these are amazing, you should start selling these’.”
Flora now works on the cards alongside a part-time job for a company selling packaging made from seaweed.
A geography graduate, she had no formal art training but enjoys being outside and finding new potential in old buttons or plastic straws while cleaning the river bank for a local environmental charity.
“I can’t get out to the countryside because we’ve been stuck in London, so the Thames has become a sort of lovely sanctuary for me. Going out and doing something positive while you’re there, it makes you feel doubly good,” she said.
The Londoner normally makes hundreds of cards a month, although last month she made several thousand to meet a surge in orders after her story spread.
However, she sees her success as part of a wider movement.
“I think the way forward will be people making things and starting businesses which don’t have so much impact on the environment,” she said.
“Whether it’s reusing something, whether it’s upcycling something, whether it’s making something from waste, I think that’s the way forward.
“So I hope people are going to do more and more, and they are. I’m by no means the first.”
