Miracle-Gro Caught Violating Pesticide Laws

[DeSwiss]

Source: Common Dreams

Common Dreams
Published on Saturday, September 8, 2012
- Common Dreams staff


[font color=gray]Photo by Stan Honda/AFP/File[/font]

Lawn and Garden company Scotts Miracle-Gro poisoned bird feed and violated pesticide laws, according to a Columbus, Ohio federal court ruling Friday. The company will now be ordered to pay $12.5 million in fines.

The company pleaded guilty in February to falsifying pesticide registration documents, "illegally applying insecticides to its wild bird food products that are toxic to birds," distributing pesticides with misleading and unapproved labels and distributing unregistered pesticides.

After Friday's ruling Scotts must now pay a $4 million fine and perform community service for 11 criminal violations of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). Scotts must also now pay more than $6 million in penalties in a settlement with the EPA and spend $2 million on environmental projects.

The combination of criminal and civil settlements were the largest under FIFRA to date.

Read more: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/09/08-1

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- I'm sorry, but this just won't do. Now I'm not asking that our CEOs and criminal executives be treated like China's CEOs and criminal executives when they get caught poisoning children and/or otherwise embarrassing the politicians there. But $12 million in fines, penalties and environmental projects is a pittance for a $8 billion dollar a year company. Not only should the fines be steeper (up to and including the corporate death penalty) but somebody needs to go to jail for this kind of stuff or they'll never stop doing it.......

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[Tony_FLADEM]

1. They gave $200,000 to a Romney PAC

http://www.democraticunderground.com/125166388


This might have something to do with it.

[AmyDeLune]

2. Zuwhaaaa????

They sold poison bird food?!?!?

To feed birds with?!?!?

WHAT. THE. HELL...??!?!??

[freshwest]

4. Yep, there was a lengthy article here on DU about it a while back.

EDIT: Here's a few of them:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11614845

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=141x36478

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002240980

I can't find it right now, but there was a related story about how one of the employees told his supervisor about the danger and they ignored it.

[PatrynXX]

6. well whatever zuwhaaa means but yeah thats a WTF moment

Sure when birds fly into the window and they end up dead. I feel guilty about it but bird seed? Oh sure kill two trees that everyone loves in a sports area. who knows how many years behind bars he's facing but poison the birds with their own food? WTF??

[Rhiannon12866]

8. My reaction, too!

[magical thyme]

15. yes. these vile, despicable scum deliberately and maliciously laced bird seed

with pesticides they knew would kill the birds that ate it.

And sold that poison to unsuspecting customers who intended to feed "their" birds and ended up poisoning them.

thank freakin' dog I stopped using anything miracle gro decades ago because it's not organic.

If I'd inadvertently poisoned "my" birds and/or "my" pollinators, I'd be beyond livid.

How the fuck do these scumbags look themselves in the mirror when they get up in the morning?!?!

[myrna minx]

3. It should be no surprise that Scotts is a proud Romney supporter.

[freshwest]

5. Yes, it is a slap on the wrist. I hate these companies. We can do better.

[glinda]

7. I agree with you on the small fines. Many of these Companies

pay an inappropriate amount for the horrors, killings and permanent damage that they do. There is really no amount of money that can balance that out. The Companies should be shut down in truth.

[Cha]

9. How hard would it have been to leave poison out

of their fucking bird seed?! Too much to ask!

There was something around here or another site about having to boycott miracle gro recently(someone lamented it because it was good for their plants-but would do it anyway)...?

Oh yeah, because they made a big showing of supporting Romney..

"In an election year filled with secret campaign money, the Scotts Miracle-Gro Company has made the unlikely choice to go public with a big political donation.

The Ohio-based company, familiar as the producer of a ubiquitous plant fertilizer, is now a political player, donating $200,000 in June to the Restore Our Future super PAC supporting Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

That makes Miracle-Gro among the first public companies with well-known consumer brands to publicly enter the new world of campaign funding. That world has been reshaped by the 2010 Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which allowed direct corporate spending on election campaigns."

More…

http://sayitaintsoalready.com/2012/08/09/time-to-boycott-scotts-miracle-gro/

[defacto7]

10. Well, there go my tomatos.

I was wondering why the birds were dying off in my garden this year. It's because Miracle Grow was supporting MR. (sarcasm)



I really didn't know some of this. Thanks.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

11. Went to Eleanor's VF-11.

Dumped Miracle-Gro weeks ago after seeing they donated big
to Romney. Eleanor's works great as spray (foliar feeding).

[Le Taz Hot]

12. I found out earlier that they were supporting

right-wing candidates and, although I had been using MG for years, I'll never use it again. Besides, I found an additive that is working, literally, miracles in my garden: worm castings (worm poopie). Forget artificial fertilizers -- compost and worm castings are the only way to go.

And I agree with the OP, $12 million in fines is nothing. Now, $12 BILLION would have gotten their attention.

[luv_mykatz]

16. I agree with you, Le Taz.

Compost, worm castings, fish fertilizer, or fish/kelp fertilizer, leaf mold (composted ground up leaves), all of these are much better for your soil than any kind of artificial fertilizer.

Artificial fertilizers kill the earth worms and the soil microbes that create fertile soil. Organics increase the health, fertility, and tilth (soil that is light, not compacted, admits air and water, and makes nutrients available to the plants roots) of your soil.

Please, avoid the products of the Poison merchants. Planet Earth thanks you, in advance.

For those who are interested: check out the origins of the Poison merchants. They got their start around World War 2. The government had invested lots of tax-payer dollars in factories to create poison gas, to combat the Germans. When the War was over, they needed to do something with the huge investment they had made in these factories. Hence, the birth of companies like Monsanto. Death merchants, from the beginning.

None of what they manufacture is really safe. It ends up in our soil, water, and air, and on our food, clothing, and just about everything that is manufactured. Mammal bodies take long periods of time to adapt to new stresses in our environment. Do some deep thinking about what it means, that most of these artificial substances in our environment have only been around since the 1940's.

[secondvariety]

13. I don't know-

the death penalty for poisoning children for profit seems appropriate. Scotts has to pay a fine and do community service-I'll keep my eyes peeled for CEOs in orange jump suits and wing tips picking up garbage along the highway.

[madokie]

14. No doubt about what you just said

Sometimes it sucks to be us and I'm not being sarcastic when I say that.
If you're not wealthy with connections you are but a item to those who are, I'm beginning to believe that more so as each day passes.

Nothing but an Item to be abused, not unlike a hammer or a nail, thats what we are, a fucking item for the rich to use in any way they see fit

[Angry Dragon]

17. I agree with you about jail for everyone that okayed the lies

[TexasBushwhacker]

18. Jail for animal cruelty

It's just so disgusting what some people will do for the almighty $. This is why the people that want to cut funding and/or eliminate the EPA are dead wrong.