What a waste!! Mini rant.

[4390evans]

So as most of you know I work in a garden center, and I love it. There is nothing better than talking about plants all day and picking up little nuggets of info.
Anyway today im so angry about all the plants ive had to throw out, I would say it was well over a grands worth! Just because ther was the odd yellowing leaf, or they had been reduced..
They wernt even offered to the staff! I took some of the herbs for the bairns nursery. It really angers me as it just goes in the compost bin when they could be enjoyed by someone. Even if they give some to the nursing home over the road or something....

[roitelet]

Throw away society!!!!!!!!!!! If was a nursery not Garden Centre they would probably have over wintered them for next year.

[4390evans]

Well its meant to be a nursery too but we just dobt have the space tbh, but even still they rather see them thrown away than given to staff. There is a few of us who really like gardening who would of been greatful for the offer but I was told to throw them put so quick no one got a look in. :/

[craftymarie]

Most businesses are wasteful unfortunately. I worked in my local supermarket for a while and the food waste was dire - could have fed a lot of people every day with what went out. That didn't get offered to staff either. So sad to bin things when they could be enjoyed

[Guest]

I worked in a supermarket briefly and they had a bugdet of just over £10'000 a week for waste it turned over around a million a month.

[alldigging]

Write a proposal for disposing of the plants in an alternative method citing all the reasons. Put it to the boss and see what they say.

[Aberdeenplotter]

It's such a shame because there is a certain satisfaction to growing something on which has been rejected elsewhere

[Lisasbolt]

Waste is a big pet hate of mine and it makes me angry.We try to eat all our leftovers if we don´t something else eats it. I think it will be common on this forum.

I worked in restaurants for many years and the food people left just getting dumped into the bin drove me mad, but i was´t about to eat other peoples leftovers

[Nicos]

I would probably need to ban myself if I commented.

...don't get me started on the utter selfishness of the up and coming 'me me me' and disposable/ wasteful society.

[JanieB]

Having worked for a food distributor for the supermarkets, they are at the mercy of the h&s and food laws. The company I worked for sold a product that could be stored in sacks in their warehouse for several years, but when it was packed for distribution it had to have "best by" and "sell by" dates on them which were about 3 months.

This means that people, like my daughter for instance, would look at the packet date and chuck them and go and buy another pack of something that had already been stored for up to 3 years in a sack.

[Greenleaves]

Although the plants mentioned by the OP have been sent to be composted, this is technically not waste as the waste hierarchy talks about recovery and composting is in fact recovery. The omly waste here is the effort put into growing them in the first place. I also note Janie mentioned Health and Safety, may I clarify there is no statutory instrument under H&S that deals with sell by dates etc. Food safety is managed by the Food Standards Angency not the HSE.

I am like most of you, appalled by waste but whilst society as a whole accepts the the amount of packaging etc around products nothing will change.