Big Box Stores Go 'Green' For Earth Day

By Greenhouse Grower staff|April 23, 2008

Home Depot loaded its newspaper insert and in-store ad for the week of April 20 with Eco Options for the garden and home, featuring products like Bonnie Plant Farm’s biodegradable peat pots for vegetables and herbs that fit in with Earth Day.

Wal-Mart also featured Bonnie biodegradable pots in its May issue of “Better Homes & Gardens,” and wrote that “if every Wal-Mart shopper bought one, we could prevent over 7 million pounds of plastic pots per year from being manufactured.”

We are pleased to see Bonnie Plant Farm support and execute national programs like this. It’s a wonderful opportunity for growers. But we don’t like Wal-Mart zeroing in on preventing plastic pots from being manufactured. As an industry, we need to do a better job of promoting the fact that a good portion of our plastic pots are made from recycled plastic diverted from landfills. Other plastic products get praised if they are made from recycled materials. Ours should, too.

Aside from Wal-Mart, both Home Depot and Lowe’s also featured organic plant food in their ads. Home Depot went with Dynamite Organic All-Purpose plant food, while Lowe’s featured organic plant food from Garden Club Select.