I had a totally differnt experience at a New Orleans nursery...the one on Airline drive. I was heading for the cash reg. with half a dozen pansies when I saw a cart full of depotted, HUGE clumps of what I thought could be agapanthus or clivia. But there also were some working tools, etc. with them so I wasn't sure if the plants were just being relocated or dumped. I asked the store manager and she said dumped, so take all you want! Several of the plants are now basking in my back yard, but they may have been so traumatized they won't bloom and solve the mystery for a year or so. zemedelec
It's not uncommon to find a situation like that at a small retail store. When the owner shows up often, the manager answers directly to the owner, and the business is small enough that the owner knows the drones by name, and even knows a little about their personal life, you'll find a higher level of trust afforded to said drones. Human nature is that in a situation like that there is more trust between the owner and the drones, and it's less likely that the drones will rip-off the owner.
On the other hand, at least once a month there is a story in the newspaper about some trusted drone who ripped-off the owner of a small business. And those are just local stories, and involve big enough rip-offs that they're newsworthy. While it may be less likely that a drone at a small retail store will rip-off the owner as compared to what happens at a large, faceless company like Home Depot, it does happen. And it's so much easier to do it at a small business because they don't take safeguards like destroying unsaleable merchandise, locking dumpsters, or aiming a security camera at the dumpster. (And often if they do aim a camera on the dumpster, the thieving employee also has access to the tape!)
That said, while I don't bother to dumpster-dive, when I'm in a store that has a place where merchandise stops for one last super-discounted try at selling it, I always check it over for things that I could use, and really are still usable. I've found that the bigger the store, the more likely I'll find things that probably could have been left on the shelf, while at a smaller store I'm more likely to get something that's still on the shelf marked-down for being imperfect. And I'm not just talking nurseries here. Retail is retail.
Some good points made in this thread, but a few other points go a bit far in defending the big retailers. I don't think the retailers "want to waste the resources of the world," but I do think they don't give such things as value, morality or ethics a moments thought. They'd toss their toxic wastes into the nearest creek if they thought they'd get away with it.
Well, the retail divisions of the large oil companies were the first ones to replace their underground tanks to comply with new laws last decade. It was the ma and pa independent gas stations that didn't upgrade, and continued to pollute until the day they had to close because they didn't comply.
A small retailer has only a few people to guide what's right and wrong. If those few people don't give a rat's butt, the store will do what it pleases whether it's moral, ethical, or anything that resembles good. A large retailer has far more eyes watching, and more people who'll blow a whistle. You may find a couple of stores in a chain with a rogue manager who'll get away with things that normally only a small, privately held ma and pa store can do, but eventually they'll be discovered.
Small retail operations and large retail operations each have their own problems. Both kinds of operations have good and bad people. The larger the operation, the more the good and the bad balance out to mediocrity. The smaller the operation, the more extremely good or bad it'll be. Contrary to what's politically correct to say today, the small businessman is not always some virtuous member of the community, and some large companies actually do care about the communities their customers come from.
Retailers are business people dealing in commodities. The plants they sell are grown just for them whether they be trees or petunias. If they destroy them, I just means that they have expanded the horticulture business by paying for excess production. Since plants are a renewable resource, the only thing wasted is the container materials and energy. Throwing away a dented can of veggies or fruit is more of a waste of resources than throwing away plants.
Morality and ethics do not help companies make money. If they did then the Big Boys (Lowes, HD, etc.,) wouldn't even be in existence -- they would have realized that they were going to drive mom & pop garden centers, small lumber companies, etc. out of business.
What about peat and the other elements in the potting soil? Peat is not always harvested renewably. What about the petrochemicals consumed to produce the plants' fertilizer? And what about the run-off? How about the smog produced to truck these plants from grower to warehouse to store only to have them thrown away? Just a few of the costs not factored into the $2.99 retail price...
While I've never worked in retail, I can see where the temptation lies. In order to keep prices down, lower level employees are paid below the poverty line. I'm surprised that people making $5.00 an hour don't steal more often.
If by consider, you mean consider, sure, probably. If you were to say they minimze those costs, I'd say they only minimize those costs that come directly from their pockets. Loss of resources, increased pollution, etc., are OPP, except in the rare instances where it is so egregious the EPA actually addresses it. For more info about the International Society of Arboriculture, please visit
The costs passed on to them become part of the prices they pay. Every business -- or at least those that'll stay in business -- will pass on their overhead costs to the next step. Then those costs are passed on to the next step, and so on and so on.
So the cost of the peat used by the grower is passed on to the distributor who passes them on to the retailer.
Or to get a little more detailed, the costs involved in harvesting and shipping the peat is part of the costs the grower adds on before selling to the distributor. Those costs get passed on to the retailer.
And if the retailer doesn't sell the plant, either their cost in lost merchandise is passed on to the consumer in the form of higher overhead used in determining prices for everything else in the store. Or if the retailer gets a refund from the distributor, those costs are passed back to the retailers when the distributor adds in additional costs in their overhead, and ultimately this cost reaches the consumer again.
Sounds horrible that the consumer is ultimately paying for all this waste, doesn't it? Until you consider that the costs involved in handling the situation differently are higher. The pressure from the consumer market to keep the final retail price low causes everyone at every step in the process to look for ways to cut their costs. The lower their costs are, the less they have to pass on to the next step to still make a profit.
In the end, either the consumer pays for everything, including waste in the production chain, or someone else along the way pays those costs in business losses.
While each step in the chain doesn't necessarily know what the breakdown of the costs of those before them in the chain are, they're still paying those costs. So ultimately, they are considering all those costs. There's no way they can't, and still have a profitable pricing model.
You missed the point. I was talking about things like diesel soot pollution spewed by trucks carrying these products that are thrown away. And stripped peat bogs that may never recover. Fertilizer from these plants that runs off and produces the Mississippi dead zone. We bear those costs, and they aren't paid by the consumer or anyone along the way. They are left unpaid.
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