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Home Depot and Its Toxic Choices


Dear [Member]:

Home Depot ? the nation's largest hardware chain ? doesn't offer their customers much of a choice when it comes to animal and kid-friendly lawn and garden care. The chain doesn't offer enough natural alternatives to the toxic pesticides it stocks on its shelves. And many of the chemical lawn pesticides Home Depot offers are not only toxic to birds, bees, fish and other wildlife, but also harmful to children, pets and water quality. Let Home Depot know that toxic pesticides aren't the only choice for lawn and garden care. Take action now?

HOW YOU CAN HELP:

As a member of the National Coalition for Pesticide-Free Lawns, Defenders needs you to help us pressure Home Depot to carry a full range of alternatives to toxic pesticides. As the largest supplier of lawn and garden products in the country, Home Depot must do more to support sustainable land practices that won't pollute our environment, threaten our wildlife or harm our families.

We need to urge Home Depot to do three things:

1) Carry a full range of natural, non-toxic lawn and garden products.
2) Train staff to be knowledgeable about non-toxic alternatives.
3) Reconsider the sale of "weed and feed" ? a particularly toxic product.


Please download (or scroll down for) this letter, sign it, and deliver it to the Customer Service desk at your neighborhood Home Depot. We need to deliver as many letters as soon as possible. If you are able to deliver your letter, please email pesticidefree@defenders.org so we know how many letters have been delivered. Let us know the city and state where you delivered your letter.

If you don't know where a Home Depot near you is located, go to http://www.HomeDepot.com and click on the store locator link.

Thanks for supporting natural and safe lawn management products for yards across America!

P.S. For more information about the Home Depot campaign, please click here.

SAMPLE LETTER:

Dear Store Manager:

I am a regular customer at Home Depot and a supporter of the National Coalition for Pesticide-Free Lawns. I was very pleased to learn that Home Depot was asked by Beyond Pesticides and Defenders of Wildlife on behalf of the Coalition to carry a full range of natural, non-toxic lawn and garden products. The group is also asking Home Depot to train staff to be knowledgeable about non-toxic alternatives, to provide natural lawn do-it-yourself materials, and to reconsider the sale of "weed and feed." It is currently impossible to shop at Home Depot and purchase the full array of products needed to maintain a natural lawn or garden. I would like to see not just one or two natural lawn and garden products on your shelves ? but a full range by Spring 2006.

As the fall season approaches, now is the time to be considering making natural lawn and garden products part of your purchase orders for next Spring!

I would like to shop at Home Depot for my lawn and garden products and will be watching to see if more non-toxic products become available and if efforts are undertaken to train your employees and provide materials on natural lawn care. I urge you to work with the National Coalition for Pesticide-Free Lawns to help make this a reality.

Thank you for listening to my concerns and please be sure to convey my support to corporate headquarters.

Sincerely,

BACKGROUND:

In April 2005, the National Coalition for Pesticide-Free Lawns publicly called on Home Depot and Lowe's Home Improvement to start selling a full range of natural, non-toxic lawn and garden products. They also asked the companies to train their staff to be knowledgeable about natural lawn care, to provide do-it-yourself natural lawn materials, to reconsider the sale of "weed and feed," and to work with the Coalition to make it all happen. By June 2005, the Coalition had heard back from the companies. Both essentially said they already carry natural lawn products and that product mix per store depends on demand. Our information tells us that neither company does any market research to determine demand but instead determines demand solely upon sales. Our response?

We understand that the company stocks the shelves depending on demand, but we also understand that the demand level is artificially skewed. The natural product(s) are completely eclipsed by the vast amount of toxic products, and customers are often referred to toxic products because staff do not adequately understand or know how to explain natural lawn and garden care.

Given the inaction of these companies, the Coalition is asking customers to speak up for natural lawn and garden care products and information. Because Home Depot is the largest seller of lawn and garden products and according to our information carries the least amount of natural products, we have initially targeted Home Depot for this action.

To learn more about the National Coalition for Pesticide-Free Lawns, please click here http://www.defenders.org/wildlife/birds/pesticides.html.

To learn how to have a pesticide free lawn, please click here http://www.beyondpesticides.org/pesticidefreelawns/resources/index.htm

Reserved for Future Use

Discussion topics:

I'm adding this section because it seems that NO ONE READS THIS STICKY. That said, I'm hoping giving you guys something to talk about will get you posting more. Yay for discussion!

Do you shop at Home Depot? If this "petition" of sorts doesn't work, will you continue to shop there?

Do you use toxic chemicals on your lawn or plants? If you're too young, do your parents? Did you know that they were toxic? Does it bother you that they are? Why or why not?

If the store personnel get trained in natural products and starts carrying environmentally friendly products, do you think more people will start buying them or do you think that they will never sell and pesticides will always be sold over natural products?

Anything else you can think of to comment?

Yay, people are discussing! Thanks kitsy. ^.~

Do you think that's the same reason why wolves are killed? Because people think they are bad and kill livestock?

heart people should stop hunting all animals for stupid reasons its wrong and discusting
i dont know how anyone could kill innocent animals heart
i dont think many people would stop hunting animals if a law was made because some laws are made to protect animals and many people dont obey them why would they obey new laws question question question question question heart

i got a pretty good comparison more ppl die of vending machines falling over on them then by sharks

Do you shop at Home Depot? If this "petition" of sorts doesn't work, will you continue to shop there?
No I wont shop there. I try to teach others to respect the enviornment. And why should it by up to me to choose what lives and what dousnt or whats a pest and whats not. cause to the earth its humans who are the past specias desctroying it for our own selfish gain. So NO i would not help deterierate the ecosystoms heath and jepordize wildlife for the look of a 'perfect lawn' pluss its GRASS not like its a bed room. why kill things just to have a nice looking lawn and garden.

Do you use toxic chemicals on your lawn or plants? If you're too young, do your parents? Did you know that they were toxic? Does it bother you that they are? Why or why not?
Read above.

If the store personnel get trained in natural products and starts carrying environmentally friendly products, do you think more people will start buying them or do you think that they will never sell and pesticides will always be sold over natural products?
With the trend of today I think some will start to turn to enviornmentaly safe options. It may take a while but the magority is slowly begining to realize what humans have done and want to try to set it right.




Thats kind of sad how people do that to the earth and fello life of it.

I love the enviornment and animals of all kinds. I think all life is sakred from the smallest gnat to the largest elephant. To me a life is a life, it may seem extreme but its true. I dont see why humans think its okay to kill needlessly or for sport or fun or why they waste so much once they kill the animal.

And about the sharks I LOVE them komodo dragons, sharks, hyenas bats and cats are my favorite animals so I will alwase look for ways to save the creatures I love.


AND it dousnt matter whare you live even in a desert the runoff will eventualy go to the ocean in its path to go to the lowest place it can. It dousnt just dissapere theres alwase underground water ways. And if a bird eats the bug then a cat eats the bird its like poisoning them. I would know my cat died cause of someone who sprayed pestisides. and working in a pet hospital its one of the larger reasons of cats getting ill is ingesting toxins from rat poisons to pestisides.

I dont use it..we don't...we let it grow naturaly with water only...