A good cup of tea can solve many of life’s problems – including environmental ones. That is according to Rosie Watson and Katie Coakes who set up Roses All Over, a business offering vintage china hire and event styling.

While environmental problems are usually dominated by arguments about hulking power plants or stinking landfill sites, the prettier, more joyous things are often over- looked. Both Rosie and Katie find that beauty and happiness by spending their weekends trawling car boot sales and charity shops in search of the perfect tea cup, china set or plate to then hire out for weddings, events or photo shoots.

And while these smaller, nicer things may at first glance seem trivial, the cumulative impact is not to be missed.

Katie, from North Lancing, says: “The business came from a genuine concern with wanting to preserve bits of the past. We’re big supporters of a campaign called Antiques Are Green, which promotes the sustainable nature of reusing old things. We really want to encourage more people to think about recycling, reclaiming things from the past instead of buying cheap new things that get chucked away when they are broken.”

Since starting the business at the beginning of the year, the couple have been involved with National Baking Week, a publishing house in London, a vintage wedding shoot and Photography Parlour, an online forum for photographers. Rosie, who hails from Lindfield, near Haywards Heath, says: “They’re doing something very similar to us, which is about raising the profile of style and an alternative look.”

The inspiration for the business grew when the two women were working together at the same PR company in Brighton. Rosie says: “We were supposed to be these slick PRs with Alessi coffee pots and Conran furniture so we didn’t talk about our under-the-counter obsession with old things. One day we confessed our guilty secret and the seed was planted.”

Between the pair of them, they already had a sizeable amount of tea cups and china and other vintage goodies. It seemed crazy not to put it all to good use.

“We’re very thankful for patient and understanding partners and husbands who don’t mind our flats being packed floor to rafters,” says Rosie. “Although they call it junk. We call it treasure.”

With a combined background in event management, fashion styling and PR, the pair were very conscious of large events where people buy things for one day and throw them out, never to think of them again. Katie says: “It’s lovely to think that you’re using something that has been loved before and will be again, rather than something disposable. And at a wedding it’s something old and borrowed, and often blue.”

And what about when the trend for vintage is over?

Vintage has become the realm of the everyday shopper. Nostalgia is involved but so is the search for a green solution to modern living.

In our increasingly throwaway society, revamping and reusing antique pieces ticks all the right eco boxes.

Rosie says: “It’s not just about a look, it’s a way of life.”

* Visit www.rosesallover.co.uk