Dressed as Bees, Sheffield Extinction Rebellion visited 4 Garden Centres in Sheffield on Saturday. They had been selected from 10 Garden Centres and Nurseries that had been previously visited and presented with a letter asking them to consider stopping the sale of Glyphosate products like Round-Up, Weedol and Resolva.
The action was to highlight three demands.
Gardeners, please stop using Glyphosate.
Shops, please stop selling products containing Glyphosate.
Sheffield City Council, please stop spraying Glyphosate on our streets, housing estates, cemeteries and parks.
The bees were not disruptive, but chatted with customers, the overwhelming majority of who had already stopped using pesticides and herbicides. Customers were given leaflets, stickers and wildflower seeds.
Some managers were not welcoming to us and defended their right to sell Glyphosate products. It was noticeable that these centres were also the ones with the fewest customers!
Valleyside Garden Centre in Crosspool was much more welcoming and assured us that they were running down their stocks of Glyphosate products and intended not to sell them in the future, as other big stores like B&Q, Waitrose and the Co-op have already done. This got us buzzing!
Here are some quotes from the bees.
‘It was great to receive such a positive response from customers at the garden centres we visited. The vast majority said that they very much support our stance and never buy products containing glyphosate, or other pesticides. The very few who did not know that glyphosate kills bees, worms and other insects were glad, if horrified, to be informed of that. A good number of the people we spoke to were only too happy to take our leaflets to put up in places where they will be seen.’
“It was gratifying to learn from some of the garden centre managers and staff that they are working to phase out Glyphosate from their shelves and promote nature-friendly gardening, e.g. through stocking peat-free compost and bee-friendly plants. They felt it was important for the government to legislate against Glyphosate.”
“Garden Centres need to ensure they are helping their customers work with nature, rather than against it. We found today that their customers would support this, but their links to companies like Bayer which manufacture these poisonous products are still strong.”
This was reported in the Star on Monday 21st August.
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