"madgardener" wrote in message ...
I have taken the incentive to post these..........

Strange sight at Home DepotPosted by CRMiller z9 CA (My Page) on Sun, Mar
21, 04 at 0:39


Today when I was at Home Depot, there was a cart full of half dead
plants (needed water) and some irises that were out of bloom. They were
headed for the dumpster. The lady working there was taking the plants out
one by one and spray-painting them! Not the pot, the leaves and stem. I didn
't stop to ask her about them because I was in a hurry. I don't like that
they throw away plants that were under watered, but spray-paint them bright
orange?!!

I'm not saying this is a good policy at all but it is, unfortunatly,
necessary because of the many points the others have brought up. It
prevents employee shoplifters from getting stuff put into the
dumpsters for them to pick up later. It helps prevents dumpster
diving (if i dumpster dive and hurt myself i'm sure i could sue Home
Depot somehow). I like the one person's story about how shoes had to
be cut in half before being tossed in the dumpster. So this practice
is 'necessary' for the store to cover their back. However there are
other routes they could take. In the case of something that has real
value (like a pair of unused shoes) they could easily start donating
these items to the local church.

But where do they draw the line at what they can donate away? Some
churches might be thrilled to get a bunch of half dead plants.
Others would be offended. And how about all the other 'junk' that
people love to dumpster dive for? It would take a lot of time/effort
to have a whole 'recycling' comitee put together to determine what
should be donated and what should be junked.

And if people don't believe the shoplifting excuse, just think about
the scenario of a donut shop. If you walk in right before closing
time, why won't they give you all the leftover donuts for free since
they're just going to throw them out? Lets say they did. The some
employee realizes that there are always X stale donuts left over at
the end of the day. Therefore he should be able to steal X fresh
donuts right as they're baked and no one is harmed since they would
have just been stale at the end of the day. This is essentially true
until the day when they needed those X donuts and they run out. The
only way to maintain a surplus and the whole idea that all items are
valuable is to destroy them in the end. It's wrong but it does
protect their ass as intended.