Jumping on the anti-neonicotinoids bandwagon with Portland is home improvement retailer Lowe’s, which says it’ll stop peddling the pesticide many critics say is to blame for declining honeybee populations.
Other retailers including BJ’s Wholesale Club and Home Depot took similar steps last year, reports Reuters, choosing to pull the pesticide also known as neonics, which are used on many U.S. crops as well as lawns and gardens.
Scientists and other critics of the stuff say bees are dying because of neonicotinoid pesticides, which is bad news for all the plants that honeybees pollinate, including plants that make food consumed by Americans. Basically, bees are free labor and really good at their jobs. Without them, it’d be a lot harder to make sure those crops get pollinated.
A study released in 2014 by Friends of the Earth and Pesticide Research Institute showed that 51% of garden plants bought at Lowe’s, Home Depot and Walmart in 18 cities in North America contained neonicotinoid pesticides at levels that could harm or kill bees.
Lowe’s says it will start phasing out neonics in shelf products and plants by the spring of 2019, pending the availability of alternatives.
Lowe’s to eliminate pesticides that hurt crop pollinating honeybees [Reuters]
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist