Being ‘green fingered’ – environmentally and horticulturally

If gardening is your passion - but you want to be eco-conscious and a bit more ‘green fingered’ then the Karma gloves (for women) and Hero (for men) gardening gloves could be the right choice for you.

Here's why... 

It’s not rocket science. Continuously working to reduce, reuse, and recycle the amount of plastic we all have in our lives is important.  Small changes and shifts in behaviour can add up and make a tangible difference to the environment. Obviously whole-scale change overnight would be better – but we need to be realistic about what’s actually achievable.

One small step is looking at looking at how ‘green fingered’ our gardening gloves are. There are lots of different options for gardeners out there. You could choose gloves that don’t contain any plastic at all (such as leather or bamboo gloves). Or you can choose to buy once and buy well – investing in quality gardening gloves that may have some plastic in them, but will wear well for longer and therefore reduce the amount of landfill you generate (if so, we’d recommend our award-winning Flextime leather gloves, or the amazing Perfect 10 gloves which don’t wear out on the fingertips).

But let’s be brutally honest - if you are a keen gardener, it’s unrealistic to think that you can buy just one pair of gloves that suits all tasks in the garden and will last forever.

Watson Gloves are on the journey to solving this problem and helping us all to be a bit more green fingered – in both senses – environmentally and horticulturally.

They are the first glove company to successfully bring recycled gloves to the market with their innovative WasteNot™ gloves. Simply put, they turn plastic water bottles into yarn, which they then make gloves from…

• The UK (alone) uses about 13 billion plastic bottles a year (BBC) and as only 16% of plastic waste is recycled (BBC) we need to find more ways of recycling and then using the plastic that is already in circulation (as well as reducing this amount too).
• The clever product developers at Watsons worked out how to take plastic bottles made from PET (polyethylene terephthalate – a form of polyester) and recycle them into WasteNot™ yarn.
• The process starts with the collection of recycled PET bottles. These are first ground into tiny chips, they are then melted and compressed into small pellets, before being spun into high-quality polyester WasteNot™ yarn.
• The WasteNot™ yarn is certified by the Global Recycled Standard, which validates recycled fibre content claims and composition.
• WasteNot yarn comprises 23-96% recycled plastic PET bottles and is used in a variety of different gloves from Watsons.
• Importantly – for us as Tinker and Fix - WasteNot™ gloves are the same quality Watson gloves, just in eco-friendly form. No compromises in quality. No compromises in performance.  

The Watson’s eco gloves that we have tested, chosen and love to both wear and sell - which are made from this clever WasteNot™ yarn - are the Hero (for men)* or Karma gloves (for women)*. They are £6.99 per pair and this is why we rate them:

• They are a great light weight gardening glove, perfect for general gardening - that fit brilliantly thanks to their tight, long cuff.
• One 500ml recycled plastic bottle is used to make each pair of these gloves. You are making one of those small steps in your eco-journey when buying these gloves.
• According to Watson’s, these gloves will fully degrade in 5 years (in ‘moderate landfill conditions’). This is because the palms are made with eco-conscious biodegradable nitrile which is engineered with Reclaim™ technology. This is an additive which accelerates biodegradation when the gloves are in landfill conditions and ensures that the gloves don’t just break down into smaller pieces but are actually converted to biogas like other organic materials (creating a circular economy).
• It’s also good to know that Watson’s say these gloves are ‘good’ for the environment because they have ‘Oeko-Tex Standard 100 certification’ – which means the fabric has been tested and certified to be free from harmful levels of more than 100 substances.
• We’ve tested and used them for over a year now. They are durable and offer good protection (but if you want more cover against thorns etc then look at one of our more substantial Watsons gloves – the award-winning Flextime leather gloves, the amazing Perfect 10 gloves which don’t wear out on the fingertips, or the ‘Game of Thorn’s gardening gauntlet. But non of these currently use WasteNot™) 

So - if gardening is your passion but you want to be eco-conscious and a bit more ‘green fingered’ then the Karma gloves (for women) and Hero (for men) gardening gloves are definitely the right choice for you.

These gloves help the environment (at both ends – production and biodegradation) without compromising the quality and performance of your gardening.  We’d say that’s a triple ‘green fingered’ win.

* Being brutally honest – we aren’t keen on the names or colour options for some of the Watsons gloves (which are unfortunately often variants of pink for women and grey for men) – and – yes - we’ve fed our thoughts back to Watsons. The fact we still stock them shows just how good the gloves really are. And the benefit of purple gloves is that I haven’t yet lost a pair in the garden. – Lou -

** Exciting news - we think that Watson's Eco Friendly gloves with WasteNot™ will be featured on Alan Titchmarsh's popular TV programme - Love Your Weekend - on Easter Sunday.  We were asked to send a pair of gloves in for them to review and use... that's how good these Eco gardening gloves are! Fingers crossed they make the edit... We are the only UK stockist for Watson's Gardening Gloves - so if you want to buy a pair of the Karma or the Hero gardening gloves (as - hopefully - seen on TV with Alan Titchmarsh) you can get them from Tinker and Fix.