‘One man’s trash is another’s treasure’ and for Flora Blathwayt, plastic waste found in one of the UK’s most iconic rivers is her treasure.
On the shores of the River Thames, Flora Blathwayt can often be found picking up fragments of plastic waste.
To most, they’re just bits of rubbish washed up, but to her, they’re the beginnings of ecological rebirth. Flora sees more than waste with each piece she gathers; it becomes a medium for creating witty greeting cards.
The LCC graduate is the founder of Washed Up Cards, a project that sells repurposed greeting cards with an adorable twist – they’re embellished with washed-up plastic from beaches and rivers.
She’s part of a growing movement addressing an ecological crisis: it’s estimated that around 14 million tonnes of plastic enter our oceans every year, with much of it ending up on beaches, where it harms wildlife and damages coastal environments.
Before founding Washed Up Cards, Flora originally worked for a women-founded company that reprocessed surplus produce into condiments to combat food waste, however, she was furloughed during the peak of the pandemic.
At a time when lockdown was isolating for many, including Flora, she found solace in nature. Living in London, a city where there is limited access to green spaces, her pocket of nature was found in the River Thames.
“During the pandemic, I really got to know the River Thames,” she reflects. She started by going on walks and picking up litter, armed only with a supermarket carrier bag and some gloves.
“I ended up finding some cool little pieces of plastic and thought about making cards with them.” She started by sending witty greeting cards to her neighbours who were shielding as “a nice way to spread a bit of positivity and joy and keep in touch with people,” she told us.
What started as a sustainable card-making hobby soon turned into a project: “I call it a project because I don’t really think of it as a business” she explains.
She reflects on her earlier designs, joking about how messy they were – describing them as stained with glue and smudge marks. Every seller remembers their first order, with the “cha-ching” sound on Etsy notifying a purchase, Flora thought it was her mum. “It was this random lady in Scotland and I was so happy,” she smiles.
Flora’s process begins on the beach, where she searches the river banks for plastic fragments that are eye-catching, spotting materials that others might overlook and knowing which textures and colours will compliment her designs.
After beachcombing, she takes the bags of unwashed plastic home to sanitise them ready for crafting: “I have loads of unwashed plastic sitting on my balcony” she chuckles. Once cleaned, the plastic is categorised by size, shape, and colour.
Flora’s local efforts, however, reflect a much bigger crisis, as plastic waste has become one of the most invasive forms of pollution on our planet, with oceans and beaches bearing the brunt of it.
Once entering the ocean, plastics break down into microplastics. posing a serious risk to marine and human life. Some types of plastic pollution are obvious from the river; plastic bottles, decades-old wrappers floating in the river or neon-coloured single-use vapes buried on the riverbed.
To get a clearer picture, Statista conducted a plastic waste study, and counted litter items found along the coastline during the International Coastal Ocean Clean-up in the UK in 2023.
The sheer volume of trash is staggering, with the majority of it consisting of single-use plastics which are notoriously difficult to recycle and end up in the ocean and rivers, much of what Flora recovers on her beachcombing visits.
While beach clean-ups have helped reduce the impact of plastic waste and protect marine life, tonnes of debris are still accumulating annually – the issue goes beyond just picking up litter – it requires a collective shift in consumer habits.
Once she sanitises and sorts her collected plastic, Flora transforms them into punny greeting cards. “For example, there’s this 16-size marker, you know, the ones you find on clothing hangers, and I’ve personalised it to be a 16th birthday card,” she says as she shows me the card.
On the back of her card designs, it states that “No two cards will ever be the same – so the cards you get might ever so slightly vary from the picture.”
Since Flora repurposes beach plastic into cards, it is expected that some plastic embellishing will differ from the card. Since her beach cleans vary across the country, she includes a not of exactly where the piece of plastic was recovered on the back of her cards.
“I have a note on the back which tells you how to dispose of the plastic in the general rubbish and the card to be recycled, she explains.
Flora’s cards are as witty as they are meaningful, blending humour with a message of sustainability. Many of her cards are inspired by nature and wildlife, such as, “Birthday fishes” or “You’re turtley awesome” paired with eye-catching designs made from upcycled plastic.
“I crowdsource my puns a lot, sometimes I ask my siblings or post it on Instagram,” she explains. She keeps sustainable card design in mind whilst also keeping it lighthearted, “Obviously the big thing about what I’m doing is plastic pollution but I try to engage my audience with humour.”
Her work is more than just a punny card, she hopes to spread a little joy while raising awareness about the plastic crisis. “People do get curious about these cards,” she shares, “I randomly started getting messages from strangers [asking] if they could join me on my next beach clean up.”
What began as a creative outlet blossomed into a community. “I later realised I actually needed a license to do that, so I got a qualification with a charity called Thames21.” Having built a community around litter picking, Flora now organises regular beach clean groups, turning her love for nature into a collective mission for change.
Beyond her upcycled card project, Washed Up Cards, she hosts creative workshops where people can design their own cards, “It goes back to the mental wellbeing part of what I do,” she says. She also runs beach cleans with schools.
Flora’s journey from what was a creative outlet to escape the lockdown blues, to creating pun-filled cards and organising beach cleanups on a wider scale is a testament to small actions creating a ripple effect.
What started as a personal mission has grown into a community effort, showing that even the smallest pieces of plastic can be transformed into something meaningful.
Her story reminds us that tackling big problems often begins with small changes and that creativity can turn trash into treasure: “The impact that my cards created wasn’t planned at all, it just happened.”
All images courtesy of Flora Blathwayt