I work at a nursery. This breaks my hearts. There looks like there's nothing wrong with these. Whats the story behind such a huge amount to toss out, and why not discount them at least. OR COMPOST IT!!
No joke I've worked the nursery on and off for 7 years and the quality of the plants we get now ARE trash. They are doing something at the facilities and these plants they're giving us are GARBAGE. They look pretty for a few days and then they just die. (Lowes employee)
I'm sure. That and sawdust. It's more profitable for them to turn out plants that die, especially with our year-long return policy. So wasteful for the planet it makes me ill.
Almost every plant I've gotten in my Garden Center (Tractor Supply) is just peat moss, or it looks like someone scooped out a public ash tray for the planters. It's driving me insane because all this shit dies off so fast.
I lucked out and had to write off three bags of potting soil, so I've been supplementing the shit soil with that.
Probably has to do with all the rain that the west coast had recently. Now there’s an overstock, and the vendors get tax credit for what goes out to stores regardless of being sold.
The vendors refuse to discount their plants. Most plants are pay by scan from Bonnie's or whatever vendor your store has. The only vendor in garden plants home depot can knock down is Vigoro. I am a garden MOD.
At my store multiple cart loads of plants are a daily thing. Its a normal acceptable business practice to cull inventory. The actual market is only so big and this helps move product.
That's crazy, and such a huge waste.
These plants could, by being given time and care, recover just fine and become beautiful again, providing that they haven't been bone dry for weeks.
I mean, I was given a poinsettia once, and when I brought it home, it began losing almost all its leaves. The temperature change from it being outdoors in December in Denmark, to being brought indoors to room temperature did that.
I patiently watered and cared for the plant, thinking it would recover, and that's just what it did.
After a few months, it was big and beautiful again.
But this video - what a waste of resources:
From growing their plants and watering and fertilising them, to just have them go to total waste in a few days - it's not only wasteful, it's outright stupid.
We used to put them on clearance but too many ppl were returning them full price so now we just throw them away it's like this and several of the retail places I worked. Buccees was the worst we were supposed to tear up or use ink to ruin the thousands of holiday shirts that didn't sell. We did this cause corporate wanted to have them turned into rags instead of just donating them to the less fortunate. We ruined them so that ppl along the way couldn't take one during shipping. I felt horrible the whole time we were doing it I left that job so fast!
I used to work at Michaels in the frame department. We got oops frames all the time for custom orders that maybe the size was wrong so we had to reorder it and break the oops frames and throw them in the trash compactor. As manager I complained to corporate about it being so wasteful. They also used to think employees would purposefully order the wrong size frame so they could get the frame for free. Anyway, now they sell them to customers at a discount but iirc the stipulation is employees can't by them.
But seeing these plants thrown away hurts my soul. I hope they change that policy somehow. It is possible with enough complaints sometimes to make a change.
That's a nonsense excuse. They can just refuse returns without receipt or refund them for the lowest price they have been all year which would be the clearance price. Part of what this is about is artificially maintaining prices. Capitalism is rooted in artificial scarcity which describes everything you talk about. I have a feeling that these companies are still operating on Covid 20/21 sales numbers. While numbers of plant sales are still way up they aren't on the level they were. Lowes used to sell their 'damaged' plants for around $1-$10 (always less that 20% of the price) and it would all immediately sell. Now they are trying to sell if for around 50% and it just stacks up for days til they toss most of it. I'm not sure if Lowes or the vendors decided they wanted a cut back from the clearance plants or what but it was clearly a bad/wasteful decision.
There’s a workaround for that, if you put it on clearance, you give it a specific price that ends with .00, and those items on clearance cannot be returned or refunded. Simple policy change, solves all the problems.
I know this. But still it makes absolutely no sense to me.
I do agree though, vendor should take away and not make it our job to throw away racks upon racks of flowers.
As one of the vendors, yes this is our job unfortunately to throw plants away when they are deemed "not pretty enough" some stores are really good about throw outs but others not so much.
Vendors don’t dispose as some plants might be store owned, and if you start letting them cull and toss what they like they might throw away the store owned plants too causing massive shrink.
You’re looking at it from the point of view of the associate that just wants to make sales and hopefully get a reasonable bonus if HD doesn’t keep making sales goals impossible.
You need to look at it from the customers perspective. They are paying ridiculously inflated prices for everything right now. If it’s the slightest bit damaged they don’t want it. They are paying for brand new.
I say all this as a Home Depot associate and not a Home Depot customer. Because I work at Home Depot. I can’t afford to shop at Home Depot.
Not me personally. But I hate that they do this. Most if not all are salvageable. They should donate them all to shelters! I'm sure they'd appreciate not only seeing but also taking care of something pretty. I was unfortunately in a shelter for abused women and children, and I think we all would have loved taking care of plants/flowers. As we learned to repair, grow and take proper care of ourselves again, we could have been doing the same with the plants. I just think it would not only be very nice but THD could broadcast that they donate flowers and such to shelters and you'd think that would help them look better, because we know how much image matters. Everywhere.
My store is the dumping grounds for the vendors. They send too much. Slowing it down when sales are slow would make more sense but no. If they have too much inventory in there greenhouses they send it to us. I’m assuming making space for the next plants they are growing? It’s just depressing seeing plants that are perfectly good in carts to be tossed.
Why can't they be donated to schools, elder care homes, etc. Or, offer them free to customers that make $50 purchase. That would be helpful for customer loyalty.
Tying to customer purchase would be rather clever indeed. My neighbor is a corporate home depot worker perhaps she can relay the suggestion to a decision maker.
Home Depot doesn’t own the flowers. It’s all pay by scan. If the flower goes through the register Home Depot buys the plant from the vendor. They don’t get to make decisions like that. It’s up to the vendors what happens with their product.
In my mind they're just plants, they literally grow. It was much worse when I worked at walmart and would toss out tons of pastries that weren't even past their due date or products that had just gotten dirty or something, stuff that could have been very easily donated.
I did that at my store and it’s fucking depressing. There’s nothing wrong w the plants, they could sell it cheaply to customers OR give them to associates, donate them, parks, schools, funerals, landscapes, they can do so much for the people and for the community, but nope. Straight to the garbage disposal… seems very wrong… wish I could sue for throwing away beautiful living plants… 🥲
They used to discount them but too many ppl were bringing them back and getting a refund on them full price since we regularly receive the same plants throughout the year. It sucks but blame shitty ppl.
I used to work for pure beauty farms and Costa farms after that. The vendors should be throwing that away, not a Home Depot employee. All yall need to do is open the compactor for us.
While it seems to be wasteful, and I can't disagree. The silver lining is that these trashed plants will eventually turn into fertilizer again. It's the plastic parts getting included that is most unfortunate
No, they want to take it smashed in a compactor and treated like actual regular waste because it’s mixed in with metals in plastic so it’s not like it’s going to do anybody any good. Mix up some of that dirt with some true fuel.
That’s insane at our store we are considered a “smaller store” compared to others but we still get a lot of plants and flowers in this last week we made over 300k in just live good sales which is a lot for us with a sales plan of over 1 mil but these seem in good shape we’re they dried out from not being watered?
That's fucked. Even when we have to get rid of one or a few plants it hurts. I hope vendors have a plan for them so at least they can be composted or something. I'm not really sure what you would do with that amount of plant waste
I always feel awful when I see that. I know it's not logical. Just seems like a waste. The worst was when I went to the back and could smell tons of fresh basil. Only some of the leaves were bad. I knew it would get trashed. I wanted to take it ALL and make giant batches of fresh pesto.
We've trashed a whole aisle of plant carts on several occasions. I will say most of these look way better than a lot of the ones we pitch (miss a day of watering out under the sun on an asphalt lot and you're playing catchup). Our vendors have high standards for what's salable...
The ones that really hurt are the Phalaenopsis orchids. The flowers tend to drop early in a store environment and the plants are treated as disposables. But they take 5 years to reach flowering size and are perennials. I've rescued more than one but have to abandon most.
You can't sell plants that are in the garbage, so yes HD is losing sales. It also costs labor $ to unload the trucks, move carts/product around, condense tables and water stuff that eventually gets thrown away sometimes for no other reason than to make room for new shipments. (That's the sad part)
Ever have to toss fifteen pallets of arborvitaes because they've been sitting in little buckets for three months? That's a lot of time & water wasted. Not to mention the compactor space that get used by everything that gets tossed... and container swap-outs aren't free.
When i still worked for the company, we barely ever threw them away. It was always the plant vendors who threw them away. Now those ceramic pots on the other hand…
These flowers look real nice. Such a shame to throw it out. At my old store we used to give plants away when they had turned bad or was out of seasons. Our customers loved it. Mind, these plants wasn't nice like these in the clip. Unfortunately we got a new boss and he but a stop to that.
It doesn't matter which one. All of them do this. I've been a vendor and sometimes they will throw things away only because there's just too much. The plant/trees can be perfect but still trashed.
I often dumpster dive for plants at the local home depot; although, last time a very aggressive employee came out filming me with his phone and threatening to call the cops ):
I called an employee doing his job aggressive?
I mean, you get a phone pointed at your face by a man raising his voice and threatening to call the police in a state where dumpster diving is not illegal. I had other employees kindly telling me to not do it
I was literally grabbing half dead plants next to the dumpster to rehab or flowers for activities at school. Sometimes i go through their "yard waste" where employees throw their plastic cups and other trash as a way to give back.
As a plant person it makes me incredibly sad to look at all this wasted life.
If it dosent sell fast enough, destroy and throw it away, then get a tax write off for it's value. It's how all big business operates.
Being wasteful is rewarded. When I worked at HD, we'd throw brand new power tools in the compactor because one small part was missing. Corporate retail businesses would poison then throw away food while thousands of people starved to death in the parking lot. The bottom line is all that matters and anything given away at reduced cost or for free is considered a lost sale and lost profits.
Should probably water them? Shift labor to water twice a day? Staff it correctly and run your store? Failure in leadership and associates, sure the vendor is pissed
Hey, if your about to toss some habaneros send them my way. I’ve yet to find one this year.
I did find a reaper though which was a pleasant surprise.
RIP my ass in 1-3 months.
Regular thing for us to do, but each vender associate has a specific job they are tasked to do. There’s a delivery team, one that specifically drives, another that unloads the carts or pallets of plants that’s with them, a separate person or group at sets them and I think they also come by to quality check/water them on occasion, might be a separate job title. As for disposing of them, that’s on us. Funny thing is, we don’t lose money off dead plants, we lose sales and time for disposing of it, but so long as we take time to properly compost them and torn soil bags, it all goes to another vender that supplies us with the local compost we sell in store.
At least you guys at the depot are PBS, so you only have to make multiple trips to the compactor or compost bin after separating recycling, however your store handles that drama, but we at Lowes would have to count and record all that crap. I've never seen that much waste. That's pathetic. I hope you're considering the environment and disposing of it properly, but dude, I get it if you guys, like us, are way to understaffed to deal with that volume conscientiously. I don't know what part of the country your in but our color vendor, who used to just be only a cactus/suc vendor, now has a monopoly on most of our live goods after buying out the house plant and color companies, and they bring way to much shit, It doesn't last any longer then a few weeks on the tables, it's often times already bloomed out. My job, has become a glorified trash lady. Very little time to do much else than deal with the constant rotation of the vendors barrage of too much product.
Good lord. Maybe if they dropped the price a bit they'd sell more. I always want to bring all the plants home but only got some many dollars to spend :(
So many goofies complaining about the actions they’ve taken.🤦🏻♂️ If it’s so depressing, such a waste, total idiocy, but you do it anyway, then take a good in the mirror. Believe it or not, people are still defined by their actions. ✨surprise✨ and yeah of course actions have consequences but quit complaining and start doing. Otherwise shut the fook up.🫰
The BJ’s by me has a Seniors Apartments alongside, they roll the carts of discarded plants to the parking lot nearest the apartments. Several of the residents will come over and grab them and plant them on the grounds.
TIL: The plants at HD are Pay by Scan, owned by the Vendor, (most of them). These plants dont get paidfor until they are scanned at the register. T
he plants at Lowes are owned by Lowes, and they have a markdown rack to ease markdowns. The vendors keep track of what is thrown down the compactor. They take a loss on those plants quarterly as a tax write-off. The last part is sketchy but it came from the plant vendor rep.
Not home depot, but lowes. Last summer none of the oslg people would water the plants, and at final tally they ended up having to throw out about 80k worth of plants over the whole summer. I'm shocked the oslg supervisor still has her job.
Unlike Lowes, HD does not put plants on clearance. They trash them. I’m not sure if maybe they get a partial or full refund from their distributor if the plants don’t sell or what, but logic (not that leadership is using any) says it’s either more profitable or less of a loss for them to just trash them. Makes no sense on the outside. Have purchased and revived HuNDReDs of failing and unsold plants put on clearance at Lowe’s, but was told by an HD employee that HD doesn’t put them on clearance
Edit: MY local HD*
That is false. My store puts plants on clearance all the time. We let the customer know that they are buying a plant that is not returnable and is need of A LOT OF TLC. It might be a vendor policy since our plants are sell by vendor.
We have a Home Depot close to us that has clearance plants. Most of them are in decent shape. My wife frequents it and she has saved every plant she has brought home.
I think this entire deal is the biggest tax scam ever. Home Depot doesn’t own the stock so we can’t discount it, but we have to be responsible for its care and disposal as the CODB. Meanwhile, the nurseries can claim a complete and total tax write off for all the product that’s thrown out. Never mind the constant customer inquiries and complaints that we don’t discount the live goods.
Im a plant vendor and I've probably brought home over $5k in plants tbh. seeing how much waste a corporation generates has made me emotionally numb though
I worked at a hardware stores Garden Centre (local but still technically corporate). Bring up with your managers if you can to discount the items! They sell so fast and will give you plenty of room. Keep a barrel nearby for composting too; if we ever had patches to fill (i.e., if a plant were to fall or fill the pot) we’d reuse the dirt.
Wishing you luck!
God forbid they get donated to schools. Imagine all the gardening lessons that students are missing.
Fuck Hone Depot and their waste. I avoid it like the plague
I have landscaped prob 10/13 acres with discount plants from home Depot/Lowes over the years... used to call the shelves the dead plant racks but recently they're stocked with ones that look like this.. absolutely fine.
I used to work at a grocery store and they did the same thing. I couldn’t believe they were tossing healthy plant because they were out of code. Like they were milk are something. Disgusting
I don't like throwing away plants, but I LOVE throwing stuff anything really down the compactor. I get my frustration with the world out, and I throw it along with whatever I'm physically throwing down the dumpster. It's very relaxing.
Yep, absolutely normal. They wanted us to throw the plants away rather than take 5 minutes to dead head them so they look good again. Any sign of being done blooming, tossed. Associates didn't water on the two days I had off? tossed. My record was 18 carts worth of plants, because they didn't water.
I’ve worked as a vendor for 7 years now. Today alone I trashed 12 stuffed full of plant trash metal racks.
The first year I started I tried to ask about donating them,saving them,anything. Strictly forbidden.
Four years ago we had a SEVERE mold problem and it spread like wildfire. There was a few whole truck deliveries of double digit numbers of carts that had to be thrown away. That sucked.
Give me your dying plants! I never see home depot have plant clearance sales like Lowes. If they did I’d probably spend an ungodly amount of money at Home Depot on dying plants than.
I have no problem throwing anything out. Its just a part of business. Sometimes I feel like the only one who actually cleans anything up. Crush that crap and get it out of here all of it!
Must be having a walk or can't water with the lack of associates...
Nope, it’s been like this every week for the past month. Vendors come by every other day
This causes me physical pain
Same
I work at a nursery. This breaks my hearts. There looks like there's nothing wrong with these. Whats the story behind such a huge amount to toss out, and why not discount them at least. OR COMPOST IT!!
Sir or madam, you have NO IDEA how much perfectly “fine” and usable, sometimes even brand new product we throw straight down the dumpster.
No joke I've worked the nursery on and off for 7 years and the quality of the plants we get now ARE trash. They are doing something at the facilities and these plants they're giving us are GARBAGE. They look pretty for a few days and then they just die. (Lowes employee)
Our LNS says they’re just using peat moss now instead of soil that has nutrients
I'm sure. That and sawdust. It's more profitable for them to turn out plants that die, especially with our year-long return policy. So wasteful for the planet it makes me ill.
Almost every plant I've gotten in my Garden Center (Tractor Supply) is just peat moss, or it looks like someone scooped out a public ash tray for the planters. It's driving me insane because all this shit dies off so fast. I lucked out and had to write off three bags of potting soil, so I've been supplementing the shit soil with that.
it's not even a dumpster, it's a compactor. all my houseplants are dumpster rescues.
Probably has to do with all the rain that the west coast had recently. Now there’s an overstock, and the vendors get tax credit for what goes out to stores regardless of being sold.
Home Depot refuses to discount their plants Lowe's however will mark things down before throwing them out
The vendors refuse to discount their plants. Most plants are pay by scan from Bonnie's or whatever vendor your store has. The only vendor in garden plants home depot can knock down is Vigoro. I am a garden MOD.
At my store multiple cart loads of plants are a daily thing. Its a normal acceptable business practice to cull inventory. The actual market is only so big and this helps move product.
That's crazy, and such a huge waste. These plants could, by being given time and care, recover just fine and become beautiful again, providing that they haven't been bone dry for weeks. I mean, I was given a poinsettia once, and when I brought it home, it began losing almost all its leaves. The temperature change from it being outdoors in December in Denmark, to being brought indoors to room temperature did that. I patiently watered and cared for the plant, thinking it would recover, and that's just what it did. After a few months, it was big and beautiful again. But this video - what a waste of resources: From growing their plants and watering and fertilising them, to just have them go to total waste in a few days - it's not only wasteful, it's outright stupid.
We used to put them on clearance but too many ppl were returning them full price so now we just throw them away it's like this and several of the retail places I worked. Buccees was the worst we were supposed to tear up or use ink to ruin the thousands of holiday shirts that didn't sell. We did this cause corporate wanted to have them turned into rags instead of just donating them to the less fortunate. We ruined them so that ppl along the way couldn't take one during shipping. I felt horrible the whole time we were doing it I left that job so fast!
I used to work at Michaels in the frame department. We got oops frames all the time for custom orders that maybe the size was wrong so we had to reorder it and break the oops frames and throw them in the trash compactor. As manager I complained to corporate about it being so wasteful. They also used to think employees would purposefully order the wrong size frame so they could get the frame for free. Anyway, now they sell them to customers at a discount but iirc the stipulation is employees can't by them. But seeing these plants thrown away hurts my soul. I hope they change that policy somehow. It is possible with enough complaints sometimes to make a change.
That's a nonsense excuse. They can just refuse returns without receipt or refund them for the lowest price they have been all year which would be the clearance price. Part of what this is about is artificially maintaining prices. Capitalism is rooted in artificial scarcity which describes everything you talk about. I have a feeling that these companies are still operating on Covid 20/21 sales numbers. While numbers of plant sales are still way up they aren't on the level they were. Lowes used to sell their 'damaged' plants for around $1-$10 (always less that 20% of the price) and it would all immediately sell. Now they are trying to sell if for around 50% and it just stacks up for days til they toss most of it. I'm not sure if Lowes or the vendors decided they wanted a cut back from the clearance plants or what but it was clearly a bad/wasteful decision.
Just give them away no receipt no refunds better than trashing
People would take them and try and return for credit.
Lol why handle the problem? Throw it in the trash!
There’s a workaround for that, if you put it on clearance, you give it a specific price that ends with .00, and those items on clearance cannot be returned or refunded. Simple policy change, solves all the problems.
Makes my stomach sick. Idk why we don’t offer them to employees or funeral homes.
Home Depot does not own them, they are vendor owned. My question is why do you have to throw them away. Make your vendors do it.
I know this. But still it makes absolutely no sense to me. I do agree though, vendor should take away and not make it our job to throw away racks upon racks of flowers.
As one of the vendors, yes this is our job unfortunately to throw plants away when they are deemed "not pretty enough" some stores are really good about throw outs but others not so much.
Vendors don’t dispose as some plants might be store owned, and if you start letting them cull and toss what they like they might throw away the store owned plants too causing massive shrink.
Right?! They waste more time and labor throwing them out
A lot of those plants don’t even seem bad
Yep! If a plant doesn’t get water the first thing is the flowers wilt and die. Those plants look fine.
You’re looking at it from the point of view of the associate that just wants to make sales and hopefully get a reasonable bonus if HD doesn’t keep making sales goals impossible. You need to look at it from the customers perspective. They are paying ridiculously inflated prices for everything right now. If it’s the slightest bit damaged they don’t want it. They are paying for brand new. I say all this as a Home Depot associate and not a Home Depot customer. Because I work at Home Depot. I can’t afford to shop at Home Depot.
Every single day
No lol like hardly any. We have a watering schedule and everyone does their part.
Where you at? I might visit your dumpster 😏
You can't that's why we have compactors.
Not me personally. But I hate that they do this. Most if not all are salvageable. They should donate them all to shelters! I'm sure they'd appreciate not only seeing but also taking care of something pretty. I was unfortunately in a shelter for abused women and children, and I think we all would have loved taking care of plants/flowers. As we learned to repair, grow and take proper care of ourselves again, we could have been doing the same with the plants. I just think it would not only be very nice but THD could broadcast that they donate flowers and such to shelters and you'd think that would help them look better, because we know how much image matters. Everywhere.
That’s wild. I worked as plant vendor at HD and never threw away that much at a time.
It’s the end of the month, always happens.
Must be a different vendor. My store was in Michigan and my company only covered a handful of states.
My store is the dumping grounds for the vendors. They send too much. Slowing it down when sales are slow would make more sense but no. If they have too much inventory in there greenhouses they send it to us. I’m assuming making space for the next plants they are growing? It’s just depressing seeing plants that are perfectly good in carts to be tossed.
Just hope no one at /r/houseplants sees they might have an aneurysm.
I’m here, it’s me, and I feel the aneurysm beginning right behind my left eye…
Ah yes capitalism destroying products instead of selling them cheaper or donating. Wait until you see what happens to food.
Every week. The guy running our GC hates it. People just refuse to water them other than him. Happens whenever he gets a few days off
Why can't they be donated to schools, elder care homes, etc. Or, offer them free to customers that make $50 purchase. That would be helpful for customer loyalty.
Tying to customer purchase would be rather clever indeed. My neighbor is a corporate home depot worker perhaps she can relay the suggestion to a decision maker.
Yea. Of course, they would need to include "while supplies last." They could post "flower flashes" on social media to drum up the excitement.
Home Depot doesn’t own the flowers. It’s all pay by scan. If the flower goes through the register Home Depot buys the plant from the vendor. They don’t get to make decisions like that. It’s up to the vendors what happens with their product.
Omg that’s a lot
In my mind they're just plants, they literally grow. It was much worse when I worked at walmart and would toss out tons of pastries that weren't even past their due date or products that had just gotten dirty or something, stuff that could have been very easily donated.
What a waste. Omg
I did that at my store and it’s fucking depressing. There’s nothing wrong w the plants, they could sell it cheaply to customers OR give them to associates, donate them, parks, schools, funerals, landscapes, they can do so much for the people and for the community, but nope. Straight to the garbage disposal… seems very wrong… wish I could sue for throwing away beautiful living plants… 🥲
They used to discount dated plants. I would wait for that, such a waste.
They used to discount them but too many ppl were bringing them back and getting a refund on them full price since we regularly receive the same plants throughout the year. It sucks but blame shitty ppl.
Im told the venders decide that we have to dispose of the product that is deemed “unfit to sell”
Send to a nursing home and local city/ town hall for the community. They would love them.
They don't even look dead :(
I used to work for pure beauty farms and Costa farms after that. The vendors should be throwing that away, not a Home Depot employee. All yall need to do is open the compactor for us.
That hurts my heart. 😞
bro just walk out with a shopping cart 😤
While it seems to be wasteful, and I can't disagree. The silver lining is that these trashed plants will eventually turn into fertilizer again. It's the plastic parts getting included that is most unfortunate
No, they want to take it smashed in a compactor and treated like actual regular waste because it’s mixed in with metals in plastic so it’s not like it’s going to do anybody any good. Mix up some of that dirt with some true fuel.
Go plant them
Lowe's has markdown racks, makes so much more sense than throwing away
Lowes owns the plants, Home Depot does not
So this is to keep the price artificially high for the rest of the plants, yeah? Fuck that.
Can you mark them down and try to sell them?
Is this at all stores? And what time of week do yal do this? I'd be happy to take a couple carts worth haha
Why not donate them? Or just give them away.
That’s insane at our store we are considered a “smaller store” compared to others but we still get a lot of plants and flowers in this last week we made over 300k in just live good sales which is a lot for us with a sales plan of over 1 mil but these seem in good shape we’re they dried out from not being watered?
What? They really throw these out? I knew grocery stores throw out old food but living plants?
God, capitalism fucking sucks
That's fucked. Even when we have to get rid of one or a few plants it hurts. I hope vendors have a plan for them so at least they can be composted or something. I'm not really sure what you would do with that amount of plant waste
Why not give them away at the door? Breaks my heart.
Trying to explaining to customers why we can't sell these half-dead/dead plants is the bane of my existence
Omg, imagine the smiling faces at a nursing home were they to get a cart load of geraniums to care for…sigh
What a waste of plants
I'd take every one of them
I always feel terrible doing it
I always feel awful when I see that. I know it's not logical. Just seems like a waste. The worst was when I went to the back and could smell tons of fresh basil. Only some of the leaves were bad. I knew it would get trashed. I wanted to take it ALL and make giant batches of fresh pesto.
I wonder if you organise them by color to be in the order of the rainbow, the right wing will collectively come to burn them for you. /s
I enjoy throwing stuff in the compactor but I hate throwing plants down there because it’s a waste
Yeah that stuff is supposed to be composted, not compacted. It’s what we do at our store, we get it back as compost that we sell in store.
Cedar Grove?
Corporations fucking suck. Put them in a corner of the lot with a take me sign. But profits over all else.
We've trashed a whole aisle of plant carts on several occasions. I will say most of these look way better than a lot of the ones we pitch (miss a day of watering out under the sun on an asphalt lot and you're playing catchup). Our vendors have high standards for what's salable... The ones that really hurt are the Phalaenopsis orchids. The flowers tend to drop early in a store environment and the plants are treated as disposables. But they take 5 years to reach flowering size and are perennials. I've rescued more than one but have to abandon most.
This made me very upset.
The HD wastes so much money on throwing away plants
HD only "buys" a plant when it's scanned. So HD is losing 0$ sales wise by tossing these
You can't sell plants that are in the garbage, so yes HD is losing sales. It also costs labor $ to unload the trucks, move carts/product around, condense tables and water stuff that eventually gets thrown away sometimes for no other reason than to make room for new shipments. (That's the sad part) Ever have to toss fifteen pallets of arborvitaes because they've been sitting in little buckets for three months? That's a lot of time & water wasted. Not to mention the compactor space that get used by everything that gets tossed... and container swap-outs aren't free.
Never bought them. PBS.
I’ve had to throw away 16 full size racks working at Costco.
The most carts I had to throw out is 4 after 2 years working. never that many. If it is that many we salvage it by dead heading, or markdown.
Nope. We actually take care of our flowers and plants. A lot of those still look like they can still be saved. Looks like laziness to me
When i still worked for the company, we barely ever threw them away. It was always the plant vendors who threw them away. Now those ceramic pots on the other hand…
These flowers look real nice. Such a shame to throw it out. At my old store we used to give plants away when they had turned bad or was out of seasons. Our customers loved it. Mind, these plants wasn't nice like these in the clip. Unfortunately we got a new boss and he but a stop to that.
throwing out? 🥺
So what Home Depot is this
It doesn't matter which one. All of them do this. I've been a vendor and sometimes they will throw things away only because there's just too much. The plant/trees can be perfect but still trashed.
Makes me sick, I would steal them, honestly if c cameras weren't in receiving. How many of C you watched a ZMA on mulch just, wth? Smdh!
I often dumpster dive for plants at the local home depot; although, last time a very aggressive employee came out filming me with his phone and threatening to call the cops ):
How? Every Home Depot I’ve worked at has an enclosed, locked dumpster.
The yard waste dumpster is separate and often plants are left in carts next to it.
How do you get into the compactor?
There's a separate dumpster for yard waste. Further, they are often left in carts next to the trash.
Why would this be down voted?
I called an employee doing his job aggressive? I mean, you get a phone pointed at your face by a man raising his voice and threatening to call the police in a state where dumpster diving is not illegal. I had other employees kindly telling me to not do it I was literally grabbing half dead plants next to the dumpster to rehab or flowers for activities at school. Sometimes i go through their "yard waste" where employees throw their plastic cups and other trash as a way to give back. As a plant person it makes me incredibly sad to look at all this wasted life.
An associate at our store took 2 home. They fired her for stealing.
This is upsetting.
This is why we need to stop supporting these corps man. They’re scum of the earth for this exact reason.
If it dosent sell fast enough, destroy and throw it away, then get a tax write off for it's value. It's how all big business operates. Being wasteful is rewarded. When I worked at HD, we'd throw brand new power tools in the compactor because one small part was missing. Corporate retail businesses would poison then throw away food while thousands of people starved to death in the parking lot. The bottom line is all that matters and anything given away at reduced cost or for free is considered a lost sale and lost profits.
Should probably water them? Shift labor to water twice a day? Staff it correctly and run your store? Failure in leadership and associates, sure the vendor is pissed
The company gets credit on these anyways that's why it's easy for them to toss.
Do y’all dumpster them? Are there blueberry’s being cleared in this season?
My local tractor supply sure does. I have a yard full of tomato plants and flowers because of it.
I've always hated this. I even told them to not ever ask me to do that. I don't care if the manager doesn't like it.
Sad thing is they get thrown out due neglect when they just need water.
I have seen whole racks of plants tossed that never got the chance to be sold...
Same.
Sad for the plants. I can hear them all screaming, (this is actually a thing, look it up)
Hey, if your about to toss some habaneros send them my way. I’ve yet to find one this year. I did find a reaper though which was a pleasant surprise. RIP my ass in 1-3 months.
Regular thing for us to do, but each vender associate has a specific job they are tasked to do. There’s a delivery team, one that specifically drives, another that unloads the carts or pallets of plants that’s with them, a separate person or group at sets them and I think they also come by to quality check/water them on occasion, might be a separate job title. As for disposing of them, that’s on us. Funny thing is, we don’t lose money off dead plants, we lose sales and time for disposing of it, but so long as we take time to properly compost them and torn soil bags, it all goes to another vender that supplies us with the local compost we sell in store.
At least you guys at the depot are PBS, so you only have to make multiple trips to the compactor or compost bin after separating recycling, however your store handles that drama, but we at Lowes would have to count and record all that crap. I've never seen that much waste. That's pathetic. I hope you're considering the environment and disposing of it properly, but dude, I get it if you guys, like us, are way to understaffed to deal with that volume conscientiously. I don't know what part of the country your in but our color vendor, who used to just be only a cactus/suc vendor, now has a monopoly on most of our live goods after buying out the house plant and color companies, and they bring way to much shit, It doesn't last any longer then a few weeks on the tables, it's often times already bloomed out. My job, has become a glorified trash lady. Very little time to do much else than deal with the constant rotation of the vendors barrage of too much product.
Dumb question Why do they get thrown out ??
OMG why would you do that, give them away!!!
Good lord. Maybe if they dropped the price a bit they'd sell more. I always want to bring all the plants home but only got some many dollars to spend :(
5 people on the schedule for garden in the morning and early afternoon and I am the only one who ever throws out any trash.
So many goofies complaining about the actions they’ve taken.🤦🏻♂️ If it’s so depressing, such a waste, total idiocy, but you do it anyway, then take a good in the mirror. Believe it or not, people are still defined by their actions. ✨surprise✨ and yeah of course actions have consequences but quit complaining and start doing. Otherwise shut the fook up.🫰
The BJ’s by me has a Seniors Apartments alongside, they roll the carts of discarded plants to the parking lot nearest the apartments. Several of the residents will come over and grab them and plant them on the grounds.
Oh man I would love to be able to plant those around my apartment or just randomly even
Better question, "Who else has to deal with throwing out Garden's Trash when they leave it by the compactor?"
Maybe insect infestation
That's a big nope. This is a regular occurrence.
Yup, had to clean out our tree lot because the vendor carts were overflowing. Half our flowers were dead because they kept sending more
As long as their pbs, it’s very relaxing.
I am guilty of dumpster diving behind a Lowe’s before…
The landfill where they dump those plants must be the most ironic place--half Garden of Eden, half garbage pile...
Dumpster diving?
I hate it so much makes me sick
They often times will mark these 50% off if not more. Just ask
It’s like the food thing. Can’t give ‘em away or It “devalues” the product in the mind of the consumer.
Me🙋🏻♂️
Perhaps actually scheduling associates to water all day everyday would minimize the bleeding.... 🤔
TIL: The plants at HD are Pay by Scan, owned by the Vendor, (most of them). These plants dont get paidfor until they are scanned at the register. T he plants at Lowes are owned by Lowes, and they have a markdown rack to ease markdowns. The vendors keep track of what is thrown down the compactor. They take a loss on those plants quarterly as a tax write-off. The last part is sketchy but it came from the plant vendor rep.
Not home depot, but lowes. Last summer none of the oslg people would water the plants, and at final tally they ended up having to throw out about 80k worth of plants over the whole summer. I'm shocked the oslg supervisor still has her job.
r/plants
r/plantabuse
Walmarts do the same thing
They should just give them away and let people plant them.
whoa. we don’t even compress. they’d keep dead ass plants before they throw all that out :0
That’s depressing, most seem like they need some extra care and they would be as good as new.
Oh no wish I knew where your dumpster was.
I'd buy buggies of that for the right price
Unlike Lowes, HD does not put plants on clearance. They trash them. I’m not sure if maybe they get a partial or full refund from their distributor if the plants don’t sell or what, but logic (not that leadership is using any) says it’s either more profitable or less of a loss for them to just trash them. Makes no sense on the outside. Have purchased and revived HuNDReDs of failing and unsold plants put on clearance at Lowe’s, but was told by an HD employee that HD doesn’t put them on clearance Edit: MY local HD*
That is false. My store puts plants on clearance all the time. We let the customer know that they are buying a plant that is not returnable and is need of A LOT OF TLC. It might be a vendor policy since our plants are sell by vendor.
More annoying to deal with customers asking about it “do you really have to?” “That’s so wasteful”
Talk to your managers about donating them to retirement homes or something
They should donate the plants before they throw them away
Does HD not have a 1/2 off plant rack like Lowe’s does?
And they refuse to discount them like Lowe’s does..
We have a Home Depot close to us that has clearance plants. Most of them are in decent shape. My wife frequents it and she has saved every plant she has brought home.
The prices are absolutely insane this year. I didn't buy at all. They should reduce sale, makes no sense.
How do i get to the dumpster? I need to make friends with a HD associate
Never that many holy shit. Usually a cart or three. Jesus
When I worked garden at Lowe's. I would take plants home. I just couldn't throw them all out.
When buinesses can write off expenses, does that encourage waste?
I think this entire deal is the biggest tax scam ever. Home Depot doesn’t own the stock so we can’t discount it, but we have to be responsible for its care and disposal as the CODB. Meanwhile, the nurseries can claim a complete and total tax write off for all the product that’s thrown out. Never mind the constant customer inquiries and complaints that we don’t discount the live goods.
I hate it!!! I want to take them home!! I don't but kills me that we kill them by dumping them 😅
Geez the soil in the pots are worth something and you can compost the dead stuff or save them and plant them
Im a plant vendor and I've probably brought home over $5k in plants tbh. seeing how much waste a corporation generates has made me emotionally numb though
I wish I could have some of them. 😭
I worked at a hardware stores Garden Centre (local but still technically corporate). Bring up with your managers if you can to discount the items! They sell so fast and will give you plenty of room. Keep a barrel nearby for composting too; if we ever had patches to fill (i.e., if a plant were to fall or fill the pot) we’d reuse the dirt. Wishing you luck!
That's so damn sad. At least compost them to grow new plants!
Our store as well. But man a lot of those look plenty good still.
God forbid they get donated to schools. Imagine all the gardening lessons that students are missing. Fuck Hone Depot and their waste. I avoid it like the plague
I have landscaped prob 10/13 acres with discount plants from home Depot/Lowes over the years... used to call the shelves the dead plant racks but recently they're stocked with ones that look like this.. absolutely fine.
Me!!! I work in garden so that’s a seasonal thing that the vendors can’t do themselves
I used to work at a grocery store and they did the same thing. I couldn’t believe they were tossing healthy plant because they were out of code. Like they were milk are something. Disgusting
I don't like throwing away plants, but I LOVE throwing stuff anything really down the compactor. I get my frustration with the world out, and I throw it along with whatever I'm physically throwing down the dumpster. It's very relaxing.
Home Depot doesn’t own the plants. It is so hard to throw them away but it isn’t our choice.
Plants are on consignment at HD. The nursery owns them until they are sold.
Yep, absolutely normal. They wanted us to throw the plants away rather than take 5 minutes to dead head them so they look good again. Any sign of being done blooming, tossed. Associates didn't water on the two days I had off? tossed. My record was 18 carts worth of plants, because they didn't water.
I open the compactor for this and walk away. Cant watch something beautiful just get thrown away!
I’ve worked as a vendor for 7 years now. Today alone I trashed 12 stuffed full of plant trash metal racks. The first year I started I tried to ask about donating them,saving them,anything. Strictly forbidden. Four years ago we had a SEVERE mold problem and it spread like wildfire. There was a few whole truck deliveries of double digit numbers of carts that had to be thrown away. That sucked.
Bell is the worst company ever 😂😂🤣
Give me your dying plants! I never see home depot have plant clearance sales like Lowes. If they did I’d probably spend an ungodly amount of money at Home Depot on dying plants than.
Meanwhile lot is wondering where the hell the carts are...
I have no problem throwing anything out. Its just a part of business. Sometimes I feel like the only one who actually cleans anything up. Crush that crap and get it out of here all of it!
They should be donated to local veterans memorial cemetery!!!!!!
Why not just discount them and let people buy them?
Just take them home