APNewsBreak: Ortho to Drop Chemicals Linked to Bee Declines

[herding cats]

Source: ABC News/AP

Garden-care giant Ortho said Tuesday it will stop using a class of chemicals widely believed to harm bees.

The company plans to phase out neonicotinoids by 2021 in eight products used to control garden pests and diseases.

Ortho will change three products for roses, flowers, trees and shrubs by 2017 and other products later, said Tim Martin, vice president and general manager of Ortho, a division of Marysville, Ohio-based Scotts Miracle-Gro Co.

The chemicals, called neonics for short, attack the central nervous systems of insects. Some advocates say neonics are one of several reasons behind declining populations of bees, which are major pollinators of food crops.

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/apnewsbreak-ortho-drop-chemicals-linked-bee-declines-38328734

[IDemo]

1. "phase out neonicotinoids by 2021"

Now there's some strong, decisive action...

[geardaddy]

10. +1 million

[Pharaoh]

14. no shit!

[Ferd Berfel]

15. WOnder if there will be any bees

still alive by then?

[Zira]

18. +1

[silvershadow]

27. +1

[bemildred]

2. Do it now, assholes. The bees are not for you to fuck with. nt

[Zira]

19. +1

[Botany]

3. What you can do

[geardaddy]

9. These are great at attracting butterflies

Also our Russian Sage plants always have a ton of bumblebees on them.

[Zira]

20. Hi, what is the name of this orange plant?

[geardaddy]

21. Butterfly plant

or butterfly weed. I prefer "plant" to "weed" because they sure don't look like weeds!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddleja

And they're native to North America, so you won't be planting an invasive species.

[Zira]

22. Awesome, thank you!

[mckara]

4. I Agree. It Should Be an Immediate Cease and Desist!

n/t

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

5. 2021? The bees will be all dead by then!

[HeartoftheMidwest]

6. Better yet, educate people and shift their values.

Screw the 20th Century "my yard has to look like a golf green" mentality, and start planting healthy, naturally resistant native species. If you HAVE to plant high-maintenance species, look for naturally-selected, tougher variants. GROW UP. It's not just bees we're poisoning, it's building up in our environment, and poisoning our pets, our children, us, and our futures.

The water, the air, the soil we grow our food in...The Commons...belong to all of us. We should protect it.

[silverweb]

8. Well said!

[navarth]

11. [phone]

[silverweb]

7. Not good enough.

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]Five years from now? Why not now?!

[navarth]

12. they've got to suck every last penny out of it first. that's why.

[silverweb]

13. Always.

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]"Profits uber alles" never ceased to be their single goal.

[FighttheFuture]

16. 2021?! What the FUCK! How about NOW! Assholes.

[blondie58]

17. Awesome!

But i agree- 2021 may be too Late.

[sinkingfeeling]

23. Do it immediately! No need to 'phase out'.

[Quantess]

24. With all the cancer people are getting these days,

I wonder why people are willing to use them in their own yards? What are they thinking? That the chemicals are only bad for the weeds?

What is it that DOESN'T make home owners stop and say, you know what, I don't want cancer so I'm going to pull the weeds instead.

It's just not worth the risk!

[womanofthehills]

25. Cide means to kill - what do people not get about that?

Many pesticides have "secret ingredients" that are as bad as the pesticides. Piperonyl butoxide is a synergist in many pesticides - it destroys the bugs liver, so it cannot detox the pesticide - otherwise the pesticide might not kill alone. So will Piperonyl butoxide effect my liver too?

People pesticide their yard, walk all over it, than walk in their house and their carpets become contaminated too so their exposure is increased and the exposures of their children and their pets playing on the carpets.

I would never use a pesticide of any kind.

[Quantess]

28. I worked at the Home Depot briefly, because I love gardening.

I tried to stay outdoors with the plants as much as possible, because indoors, I would have to to be around those nasty gardening chemicals.

I was amazed at people who put Ortho "Kill All" in their cart. I sometimes convinced them to put it back and buy Round-Up instead, because it's slightly less dangerous and (I believed at the time) dissolved out of the soil quickly. I felt like I was helping the environment by talking homeowners down from the most extreme herbicides. We know now that Round-Up is also horrible. It was like spitting in the wind.

The lady who quit right before I took the job had a miscarriage late in her pregnancy. I quit because it just wasn't worth the exposure to nasty poisons.

[KoKo]

26. By 2021! Will there be any Bees Left by Then?

This sounds like crap to me.