Flower grower’s daughter Yasmin Wessels has diverted more than seven tonnes of plastic from landfill by creating a recycling scheme for discarded bouquet sleeves.
Ms Wessels, 24, founded The Flower Loop at the age of 20 after witnessing the scale of plastic waste while working with her Dutch-born parents at a flower auction during her final year of high school.
The business collects plastic used to wrap bouquets and sends it for recycling and re-use. The amount diverted so far is equivalent to about one million flower sleeves.
Her work has earned her recognition as an evokeAg Groundbreaker, a mentoring and leadership programme for young innovators in the agricultural sector. She hopes to bring the system to Australian flower markets.
“Hopefully it becomes something consumers recognise and … want to support,” she said.
Ms Wessels grew up in a family of New Zealand tulip bulb and flower growers. As a child, she and her brother would take homegrown bouquets to school for Mother’s Day and end-of-year gifts, despite feeling embarrassed about carrying them through the schoolyard.
Over time, she said, she came to appreciate the significance of flowers. “They are nature’s gift to us. They’re so beautiful … and represent the cycle of life,” she told AAP.
“It takes a while to grow and bloom and you appreciate them so much because they only last a week or two.”
Her father initially encouraged her to tackle the industry’s plastic waste by replacing plastic wrapping with paper. Ms Wessels later decided that paper was not the answer after learning that waste in the oxygen-free conditions of landfill produced high levels of methane.
She sought advice from Circular Plastics, a closed-loop recycling operator in the Netherlands, her parents’ homeland. The organisation offered her a job or support to establish her own business, and she chose the more difficult route of working independently.
“It was a perfect storm of being born into a family of flower growers and seeing the issue, but the plastic problem is a worldwide one,” Ms Wessels said.
“With an issue that big, there’s also an opportunity just as big. With so much negativity and anxiety around what’s happening in the world at the moment, there’s always a positive way to look at things.”
Another evokeAg Groundbreaker, Zoe Carter, has focused on helping people find work in agriculture after experiences that showed her the sector was struggling to connect with potential employees.
Ms Carter, a long-time animal lover, was discouraged from pursuing agriculture by a high school careers adviser who told her it was “for old men” and offered no money. She studied agriculture regardless and worked on a property in New South Wales before a serious riding injury forced her to change direction.
After working in roles including an abattoir boning room and a sheep stud, she founded Agriculture Jobs Auswide to highlight career opportunities in the industry.
“There’s so many passionate people out there that just keep getting turned away,” Ms Carter said. “There’s an incredible amount of opportunity.”
Ms Wessels and Ms Carter will speak at evokeAg in February 2027 alongside other innovators from New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia.
