Update April 2017: True Value Hardware has agreed to stop selling bee-killing neonics. Now, only Ace Hardware is left out of the major hardware stores in America.
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We are making huge progress in our fight to protect the bees -- Lowe's and Home Depot have agreed to take steps to stop selling the world's most popular pesticides, called neonics. Now it's time to shift our focus to two of the largest retailers who have yet to ban bee-killing neonics: True Value and Ace Hardware.
Nearly 750,000 SumOfUs members signed our petition to Lowe's and Home Depot. We flooded their phone lines, sent them letters, and went to see their store managers -- in short, we made it impossible for these corporations to ignore us. The result: a victory for the bees that is as sweet as honey.
In the wake of Lowe's and Home Depot's big announcements, now is the perfect moment to push True Value and Ace Hardware to join their biggest competitors and take steps to phase out neonics. Will you help us push Ace and True Value over the edge, and make an even bigger impact in the fight to save the bees?
True Value, Ace Hardware: stop selling bee-killing neonics.
Its just not bees -- evidence is mounting that butterflies, moths, and birds are all affected by neonics. Without pollinators like bees and butterflies, many of our most important crops simply can't grow, putting our food supply is in danger.
Many scientists from around the world believe that neonics are a key factor in recent global bee die-offs. Many of the “bee-friendly" seedlings and plants sold to unsuspecting consumers in Ace Hardware and True Value stores may have been pre-treated with neonics at much higher doses than are used on farms, where levels of neonics use is already raising concerns among beekeepers and scientists.
In spite of the overwhelming evidence that neonics are killing the bees, major corporations from Bayer to Syngenta continue to manufacture and sell them. Why? Because for these companies, profits trump saving our environment and food supply. By speaking up, we're changing the equation for these companies and making sure they protect the bees.
SumOfUs has been right at the front of the global campaign to save our bees. We came together to fight Bayer at a huge independent garden store show in Chicago. We're taking legal action in Europe to defend the EU's ban against Bayer, and we spoke out at Bayer's annual shareholder meeting. But to win this fight, we need to get more retailers on board with saving the bees!
Tell True Value and Ace Hardware to stop killing bees with pesticides -- end the sale of neonics.
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More information:
More than a half million people demand Home Depot and Lowe's stop selling bee-killing pesticides Friends of the Earth, February 10, 2014