For years I have been getting by with an old iphone 4S, my dislike of mobile phones and their intruding presence fueling my resistance to the need for upgrading. The phone constantly disappeared in the most mysterious places, where I would eventually find it entirely by chance, flat as a pancake.

Only 4 people have my number: Mr Binky, my dad, the singer of my favourite band and my hairdresser. Unfortunately it has become harder and harder to evade the ubiquitous fiend. From banking to HMRC, everyone wants to send me secret unlocking codes, which I can only get if the phone is in reach and charged as well. Unacceptable in my opinion, but what can I do? My less than a decade old but already antiquated phone was no longer able to download upgrades and wasn’t syncing with my laptop. I had to upgrade.

Comes in the iphone 8, the oldest and cheapest model that was still sold by my local Apple shop. In Space Grey, which is actually pretty cool, although I won’t admit it easily. And now for the most exciting part about this whole business: finding a new phone case!

And didn’t I find some treasures: a paint palette, a William Waterhouse painting, some plastified Liberty fabrics, even a mermaid sitting on a Moon crescent, which would be like my most fantasied self-portrait 😀 Of course, all of these were made of plastic. There is an estimated 25 billion mobile phones sold to this date. Some of these have known several cases, depending on their durability or their owners’ mood. That is a great big mountain of plastic.

So I changed my search from “iphone case” to “eco-friendly iphone case”. I found some made of wood (I was worried they were not flexible enough to survive my handbag), some made of fabric or even knitted (my mobile phone tolerance already being at minus 265, I wanted something I could charge without fiddling it out of its case) and then I found the Loam & Lore biodegradable hard case, made of wheat.

I had to read that twice too. It is made of wheat fibres, compacted into a bio-plastic. It is shock absorbent, wraps around the phone and covers the sides. It also supports wireless charging. It comes in mint green, pink or black and it is engraved with a topographic map of the Amazonian rainforest. It is vegan and 100% biodegradable. Basically apart from the lack of mermaid it is perfect. But then, rummaging through a drawer of pretty little bags and pouches I don’t currently use, I found a mermaid design pouch that is exactly the same colour as the case and is just the right size. That was lucky and made me very happy.

So now that I have a mobile phone that looks so very pretty and charges as I listen to music while I paint, might I start considering giving my number to more people other than my husband, my dad, my email-phobic hairdresser and a rock star? One step at a time…

Please click here for a link to the phone case and here to the Loam & More website