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Daily News Blog

17
Aug

Take Action: Tell Lowe’s and Home Depot to Promote Organic Instead of Poisons

(Beyond Pesticides, August 17, 2020) Once numbering in the millions, barely 29,000 western monarch butterflies were found in California at last count. Pesticides pack a one-two punch against monarchs. Insecticides—particularly neonicotinoids—poison the caterpillars and butterflies as they feed. Glyphosate—the active ingredient in Bayer-Monsanto’s Roundup® — is wiping out milkweed, the only food source for monarch caterpillars. This has contributed to monarchs’ 90% decline in the past 20 years alone. They could vanish within our lifetimes.

Home and garden stores like Lowe’s and Home Depot can play a huge role in ending the use of this toxic pesticide in our backyards and across the country. Already, Lowe’s is removing neonicotinoid products from its live plant offerings and store shelves, and Home Depot is eliminating use of neonicotinoids in its live plant offerings. They could stop selling Roundup®. More importantly, they could encourage organic practices through their product offerings and consumer education.

Ask Home Depot and Lowe’s to get Roundup® off their shelves and promote and educate on organic!

Companies like Lowe’s and Home Depot could be leaders by removing products containing glyphosate/Roundup® from their physical stores and online—following the example of their competitor, Costco. This would send a powerful message to Bayer that it must phase out this harmful chemical. Instead of replacing Bayer-Monsanto’s Roundup® with other toxic products, garden retailers can facilitate a switch to organic by educating consumers and increasing offerings of organic-compatible and other safer alternatives. 

Organic alternatives work within an organic system that includes practices that build soil, cycle nutrients naturally, and increase biodiversity—including soil-building organisms, pollinators, and predators and parasites of plant-eating insects. Attempting to sell organic products as stand-alone “silver bullet” solutions dooms customers to failure, while educating them about the role of those products in an organic system will bring them back for more.

In the absence of effective regulation by the Trump Administration, we need garden retailers to act responsibly. Customers like you played a key role in convincing Home Depot and Lowe’s to protect pollinators by committing to stop selling plants grown with bee-killing neonicotinoid pesticides. Now, you can push them to take another vital step in pollinator protection. 

Ask Home Depot and Lowe’s to get Roundup® off their shelves and promote and educate on organic!

Roundup has been marketed by Bayer/Monsanto as effective and safe, but, in reality, its use delivers human and ecosystem harms. Exposures to it threaten human health (including transgenerational impacts) and the health of numerous organisms. In addition, many target plants are developing resistance to the compound, making it increasingly ineffective as a weed killer, and resulting in ever-more-intensive pesticide use. Glyphosate was classified in 2015 by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) as a probable human carcinogen.

Last year, a jury ordered Bayer to pay $2 billion to a couple who used glyphosate on their lawn for decades and who both suffered from non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Over 52,000 similar court cases are pending. But instead of removing this product from store shelves, Bayer-Monsanto is trying to settle the lawsuits and keep selling this toxic pesticide. Under the terms of the deals, Roundup® would continue to be sold in the U.S. without any safety warning. 

In light of the increasing evidence of the harm glyphosate can cause, some countries have stepped up restrictions or instituted bans on use of the compound, including Italy, Germany, France, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bermuda, Fiji, Luxembourg, and Austria. A growing number of jurisdictions in some countries have taken similar actions. In the U.S., counties, towns, and cities, including Los Angeles, Seattle, and Miami, and many others in California, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Washington State, and more, have banned glyphosate applications on public lands. The New York State legislature banned glyphosate last month.

The solution to the current federal “whack-a-mole” approach to mitigating the impacts of glyphosate (and all toxic pesticide) use is a wholesale transition away from the chemical dousing of public lands, agricultural fields, and all manner of maintained turf. Organic approaches to insect, weed, and fungal problems in agriculture and on other lands and landscapes (and in homes, gardens, buildings, et al.) do not involve toxic pesticides, and avoid the health and ecological damage they cause.

In addition to being genuinely protective of human health, organic management systems support biodiversity, improve soil health, sequester carbon (which helps mitigate the climate crisis), and safeguard surface and groundwater quality.

Bayer-Monsanto won’t protect butterflies, bees and our health on its own. Garden retailers, with Lowe’s and Home Depot leading the way, can help shrink the market for glyphostate/ Roundup® and help keep it out of our backyards and communities, while educating consumers on gardening and land management with an organic systems approach. 

Remind garden retailers they have an important role to play — let them know our health is more important than Bayer’s profits.

Letter to Lowe’s and Home Depot

Home and garden stores like yours can play a huge role in ending the use of this toxic pesticide in our backyards and across the country. Your step to eliminate use of neonicotinoids in live plant offerings helps protect monarchs and other pollinators. I am writing to ask you to stop selling glyphosate products such as Roundup®—as Costco has done—and encourage organic practices through product offerings and education.

Once numbering in the millions, barely 29,000 western monarch butterflies were found in California at last count. Pesticides pack a one-two punch against monarchs. Insecticides—particularly neonicotinoids—poison the caterpillars and butterflies as they feed. Glyphosate—the active ingredient in Bayer-Monsanto’s Roundup®—is wiping out milkweed, the only food source for monarch caterpillars. This has contributed to monarchs’ 90% decline in the past 20 years alone. They could vanish within our lifetimes.

Roundup has been marketed as effective and safe, but, in reality, its use delivers human and ecosystem harms. Exposures to it threaten human health (including transgenerational impacts) and the health of numerous organisms. In addition, many target plants are developing resistance to the compound, making it increasingly ineffective as a weed killer, and resulting in ever-more-intensive pesticide use. Glyphosate was classified in 2015 by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) as a probable human carcinogen.

Last year, a jury ordered Bayer to pay $2 billion to a couple who used glyphosate on their lawn for decades and who both suffered from non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Over 52,000 similar court cases are pending. But instead of removing this product from store shelves, Bayer-Monsanto is trying to settle the lawsuits and keep selling this toxic pesticide. Under the terms of the deals, Roundup® would continue to be sold in the U.S. without any safety warning.

Customers ask you for advice. In addition to removing glyphosate products from your shelves, your stores should advise customers to use organic alternatives. Organic alternatives work within an organic system that includes practices that build soil and increase biodiversity—including soil-building organisms, pollinators, and predators and parasites of plant-eating insects. Attempting to sell organic products as stand-alone “silver bullet” solutions dooms customers to failure, while educating them about the role of those products in an organic system will support nature organic land management and organic-compatible products.

We are living during a period that requires retailers, like you, to take responsible action in the face of inadequate federal toxic pesticide restrictions, despite the availability of environmentally responsible practices and products. We urge you to be a responsible retailer by taking glyphosate/Roundup® off your shelves and educating consumers on organic gardening and land management with organic-compatible products.

Thank you for considering my request and promoting good health through organic lawns and gardens.

Share

2 Responses to “Take Action: Tell Lowe’s and Home Depot to Promote Organic Instead of Poisons”

  1. 1
    Deb Buckley Says:

    Save the pollinators!

  2. 2
    Lynn Hamilton Says:

    There really is no excuse for using chemicals that destroy pollinators any more.

Leave a Reply

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