Over the years I’ve said some nice things about Scotts Miracle-gro products, such as one of their potting soils, and some not so nice things, such as with their Round-up resistant Kentucky bluegrass. I’ve never thought of them as a particularly good or particularly bad company, just a company trying to do the best it could while being reasonably honest about what it was doing (You could argue that they tried to pull something fancy with the Round-up resistant Kentucky bluegrass, but I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt and say they were just exploiting an obvious governments loophole – not exactly good, but hey, it’s a dog eat dog world out there).
But then the news broke that they had applied insecticides illegally to their wild bird food products, falsified pesticide regulation documents, distributed pesticides with misleading and unapproved labels and distributed unregistered pesticides. If you haven’t seen the article yet you need to look here.
Damn.
Anyone who has read much of what I write knows that I try to tell the truth about products to the best of my ability, to do this I rely on a lot of different sources of information, including information provided by the company itself. I trust that, for the most part, companies try to do what they say they’re doing (or not doing) in terms of letting us know what’s in their products. At the least I assume that they follow the government’s rules and regulations.
This is a serious breach of my trust.
How am I supposed to deliver the facts about Scotts Miracle-Gro products when I can’t trust them to do what they say they’re doing?
I mean really? How can I talk about their products again? I have no idea what’s in there.
I’m trying to think of something pithy to say next – but I’ve got nothing. I’m deeply disturbed that this could happen, and, at least for the time being, I just can’t, in good conscience, trust this company or its products. Sure, the company is saying all the right things now, but that’s not enough.
Here’s a thought – maybe they could publicly state that they’re not going to release the Round-up resistant Kentucky bluegrass – you know – to prove that they really are serious about avoiding doing things that might disturb the environment. And then actually do it. Yes – that would be a good start.
The investigation/litigation has been going on for several years – I remember the early reports that came out right before a Garden Writer’s conference of which Scotts was a major sponsor. Kind of made me itch.
Jeff – in a similar vein, Gail Langellotto, Oregon State University Master Gardener Coordinator, posted an open letter to Scotts at http://osumg.blogspot.com/2012/09/an-open-letter-to-scotts-miracle-gro.html. You and she have both very articulately captured concerns of many of us.