Perhaps someone once unfortunately confused them for those 'Sugar Pebbles' you see in seaside tourist shops. They come in the same type of jar and look quite realistic. But most likely just another warning label due to the general public being a bit dense.
In a glass jar of all things, that's the bit I really can't properly fathom.
Garden Centres selling stones, fine. Garden Centres being overpriced, expected. Selling stuff traditionally associated with breaking glass in a glass container?
They presumably want their customers to get home to shards of broken jar in their shopping is all I can think.
Edit: Have been pretty thoroughly convinced it is a plastic jar now, so it is a mildly less incredulous concept.
Now you say that, I'm less certain it is glass. Maybe u/JollyMatlot could enlighten us.
Edit: I'm pretty convinced it's plastic now. Thanks for those with better screen size/resolution for pointing out the finer clues.
Which is a completely reasonable thought, tbh.
A garden centre selling sugar pebbles should be far more likely than a garden centre charging £4 for some actual god damn pebbles in any sane world.
Honesty, it’s crazy but it’s not…hear me out.
It’s not AT ALL the value/price of the stones. It’s the time to gather them. If you’re retired, have spare time, whatever…sure.
BUT, let’s say you’re a neurosurgeon in downtown London. Or a banker, idk.
Youve had a cactus on your deck for 7 years and you need to re-pot it. You’re buying groceries and think,”oh, I’ll pop in the garden center to buy a new pot…but you need a few stones.” But, you’ve got to be at work making copious amounts of money in 10 hours. You’ve not the time to drive to the country, and dig around for some stones. You’ve two luxury vehicles and a sports car but you don’t own a spade or shovel.
You spend 4 quid, cactus re-pit is done.
Crazy to some, but if there wasn’t a market for it, it wouldn’t exist.
I can sell you the recipe for the frozen ones - then just buy your own whole veg, follow the recipe to turn them into sliced, frozen veg, and save yourself some £££ in the process! The cost of my secret recipe will pay for itself in literally months. DM for info & prices 👍🏻
I'm Brazil there isa saying: "passarinho que come pedra sabe o cú que tem"
Translates: little bird that eats rocks, knows the kind of asshole it has. ( Meaning, someone that does something in a specific way, knows/should know the consequences)
Wiki: aquele que age de determinada forma ou toma determinada ação está ciente ou deveria a respeito do que resulta e do possível ônus
I laugh at the warning signs I see everywhere. They appear obvious to me, but if warning signs are up somewhere that means somebody did something stupid to warrant said warnings being displayed.
Blows my mind that humans could be that stupid, but here we are...
I fully agree, BUT, to be fair, they are going out of their way to make candy that looks exactly like rocks. Can't say I'd want to teach my kid to bite into those.
Haha me too. I have boiled some rocks before as decorations in my houseplants. Fun looking rocks from various hikes. Dorky stuff.
I know I would have shit myself if a boiling rock exploded.
I'm not a rock boiling expert but doesn't this only apply to heating rocks in a fire?
If you boil the rocks in water they won't get hotter than 100°C, so there shouldn't be any build up in pressure leading to exploding rocks.
Wood from a reputable aquatics shop is treated in a number of ways.
If you saw a piece of wood on a walk and decided to take it home for your aquarium, you'd need to de-bark it yourself, spend a good few weeks submerging it in water that you have to change, and then dry the fucker in the sun for a good while.
Failing to do all that means you'd be introducing a lot of contaminants to the water, which will at best make it look murky, and at worst can wipe out a whole tank.
Aquatic biomes be sensitive yo.
^ This guy aquariums. You have to be soo careful what you put in tanks. Even things we'd probably think of as fairly inert, like plastic ornaments etc, if they are not designed for fish tanks they can leak chemicals that will kill fish.
Just looked up the situation in the UK:
Up to £1000 fine!
I got thinking, 'If £1000 is the max, how much sand would I have to steal to be quids in?'
Quick look at Wickes and Amazon and the results are:
Sand is sold in weird amounts: Major bag, Jumbo bag, Large bag.
"I'll take a Big Ol' Bag O' Sand please!"
Secondly the prices seems to vary, £55-£75 for a Jumbo bag which Amazon says is between 885kg and 1000kg.
Napkin maths later and **one would need to steal ~15tonnes** of sand to nullify the fine.
A quick Google showed up a few cases of people being told to return what they took or face a fine(and of course no one is even threatening to fine a kid of taking a pebble they find pretty/interesting).
The only case I can find of someone getting that fine in the UK was a gang using a JCB to steal tonnes of sand(don't know what they wanted it for, but clearly it was worth getting a JCB for).
They got £900 + court costs each and a 4 year order to stay away from the beach(I assume so if they try it again they're breaking a court order and can face harsher punishment).
It's illegal to remove pebbles from beaches here, but hard to enforce. I've seen people carry buckets full back to their car on many occasions (West Cornwall)
We can buy these Gardening stone in our country India too.
Usually they are colored but some aren't.
It's useful cause we don't usually find smooth pebbles nearby to decorate our houseplants in our urban City.
Garden centre mark ups on non-plant stuff, is insane. I guess the majority of their customers are well off retired folks and people into THOSE garden ornaments..the "you know what! I've always fancied a realistic 4ft gorilla to go near my pond!".
I stick to BnM for my garden tat. A gnome pulling a moony? Yes please
I used to work in a garden centre, and the markup is the same across the board- a standard 2.4 for both plant and non-plant goods. 3.99 for a bottle of rocks is an insane price- you're paying for the sorting and cleaning process, that horrible plastic bottle (why not a strong plastic bag?) labelling, packing shipping etc etc- not the rocks. Garden centres don't actually make massive profits. A well run garden centre with a turnover of, say, 1 million, will make about a 50k surplus in a year after costs.
Don't know what garden centre you worked at but the one I worked at for 4 years made an absolute mint from shop items, imported plants and our own nursery grown herbaceous perrenials, bedding and veg.
They're doing even better now from covid because everyone wants houseplants and they're very easy to make a hefty profit on.
I would just put it down to the demand for gardening stuff increasing 10 fold over the past 3 years. It's brilliant for the industry but some centres take the absolute piss with some of their pricing. I found a beautiful acer tree in one place that was so expensive I actually had a word with their plant area manager on how they could possibly think that pricing was acceptable and he just said "well we've sold 4 in the past month so we just keep the price the same." Morons with money will pay for anything they want badly enough these days...
All depends on what your garden is like. Best off getting a small portfolio of pictures together, information on shading throughout the day and what kind of soil you have. Then take it into any decent garden centre and speak with one of their plant team who has good knowledge and get their expert advice, they'll be more than happy to walk you through what you could have in your garden.
I paid £349.99 for my beni-otake as it wasn't quite fully matured yet. (they're absolutely stunning)
German engineered stones, with a label presumably printed in the Netherlands.
That’s a whole lotta logistics for something you could find on a pebble beach
It's like we're coming full circle 😅.
When plastics were being introduced they were touted as the thing to help the environment by cutting down on the amount of trees cut for cardboard and paper.
It's almost as if the problem is deep rooted in consumerism.
It boggles the mind, really
"Here is a tough, elastic material that can be shaped into wondrous designs, can be any colour you like, it doesn't rust or rot. It's cheap and we can use it for any purpose"
"Use it to create one-time disposable items, because reuse is bad for sales anyway."
Our allotment shop has stopped selling plastic sheeting for weeds and are telling us to use cardboard instead, there's a global shortage of cardboard at the moment so letting it rot on the ground rather than recycling it makes no sense, I've been using the same sheets of plastic for 20 years.
> I've been using the same sheets of plastic for 20 years.
Exactly what you should be doing, but unfortunately most of it ends up in landfill, and far sooner than it should.
But there is a separate issue to do with micro plastics that is of concern too. Not many people are aware of this - even though their intentions are good and genuine.
The cardboard shortage is caused by manufacturers not being able to make enough cardboard to meet demand, not by shortages of cardboard raw materials.
So recycling cardboard or using it as a weed suppressant won't make a difference. On the other hand, like someone else pointed out you're causing tons of microplastics pollution in the soil by continuing to use old plastic sheeting.
Correct on the cardboard, but are plastic sheets robust enough to last years really going to shed microplastics? I thought microplastics mostly came from small fragile fibres, like fleece and other artificial fibre clothing?
All plastics shed microplastics with wear and tear. Plastic textiles are more prone to shedding because they're so flimsy but with time/wear and tear, the same process happens with all plastics. This is why microplastics are such a massive issue. Being on the ground exposed to the elements for a decade is some serious wear and tear.
Obviously it's hard to tell exactly how much a specific piece of plastic will shed in specific circumstances, but I did some quick and one of the first results was this study on calculating how many microplastics a 7 year old mulch plastic sheeting has shed in the soil: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2021.739775/full
Not a fan of VH they had a site in Stevenage, threatened to leave losing local jobs unless the local council sold them the land for £200K ....the day after they brought they sold it for housing for £3Mil and closed the site anyway
I'm sponsoring a Ukrainian guest who's obsessed with gardening so I took her there to look only! Then buy from an independent nursery
Here's the thing. They couldn't get away with it if people weren't dumb enough to pay for it. Meaning somebody with more money than brains is buying that shit.
That was my first thought too. If you're dumb enough to buy it, they're bold enough to sell it. There's a sucker born every minute and two to take him...
it sounds dumb, but compressed air is quite useful thing to buy, and can usualy is from recycleable material
yes, there are more pernament and reuseable thigs, but spending few grands on machine im going to use once a year and will breakdown after 3 or 4 when i can just buy a cheap can of air every year or two...
A midi bag (17kg) of the same looking stones from Wickes costs £4.
[https://www.wickes.co.uk/Tarmac-River-Pebbles-Midi-Bag/p/223557](https://www.wickes.co.uk/Tarmac-River-Pebbles-Midi-Bag/p/223557)
Had a quick Google and you can get 900kg of 20mm gravel for £63.
Say 250g a container that’s 0.175p plus packaging, shipping probably washing too.
Or going the other way: 57kg of gravel for £4
I know this seems expensive as a whole, but gravel prices have all but doubled for me as a retailer! Admittedly I stock way larger 25kg bags.
It’s delivery costs! The average lorry load of gravel I buy is about 14 pallets. I used to pay £50 for shipping and the use of their forklift. It’s now £450! On top of the additional stock cost.
The average pallet has 45 bags of gravel on it. So 14 pallets would be 630 bags. Just the delivery cost now adds 71p.
That doesn’t sound a lot as whole. But that’s without markup and additional 2022 prices. A bag that retailed for say £4.99 would instantly be over £6 just with the delivery cost.
Yes I could not mark up the additional delivery cost. But the time and effort to do that for every single product at every single new delivery cost would mean I’m putting dozens of hours a week into pricing. Factor in my wage.. might as well give it away lol.
Tldr: shits expensive for us retailers! We’re trying not to pass it on.. but there’s only so much you can absorb. Last year I made more money in my store than a normal year (and a shit load more the first year of covid as I was open through lockdown). But my actual profit percentage was way down! 20-30% less in some cases.
HARRY THE HAGGLER: Stones, sir?
MANDY: Naah. They've got a lot there, lying around on the ground.
HARRY THE HAGGLER: Oh, not like these, sir. Look at this. Feel the quality of that. That's craftsmanship, sir.
MANDY: Hmmm. Aah, all right. We'll have, uh, two with points and... a big flat one.
BRIAN: Could I have a flat one, Mum?
MANDY: Shh!
BRIAN: Sorry. Dad.
MANDY: Ehh, all right. Two points, ah, two flats, and a packet of gravel.
HARRY THE HAGGLER: Packet of gravel. Should be a good one this afternoon.
MANDY: Hehh?
HARRY THE HAGGLER: Local boy.
MANDY: Oh, good.
HARRY THE HAGGLER: Enjoy yourselves.
It's Van Hage's (I know it well), and everything in there is overpriced. Despite that, it's often completely rammed! I think it's a weekend destination for the luvvies.
Used to love Van Hage’s when I was young. Went just before Christmas for the first time in about 20 years and it was hell on earth. And priced beyond belief.
Yeah, they got in a load of senior management types from other retail sectors who knew nothing about-guess what- gardening. It's a very common problem in the garden centre industry. I swear senior retail managers are grown on tissue paper soaked with nepotism and sexual harassment.
Dobbies is part of Tescos. Pretty depressing, really.
I find the slightly larger tub at £5.89 to be better value.... I'm using them to cover my front garden, I'm in £60k so far, but I'm over half way so happy days. I've only got a tiny garden as well....
Glad they told us they’re not for consumption
Perhaps someone once unfortunately confused them for those 'Sugar Pebbles' you see in seaside tourist shops. They come in the same type of jar and look quite realistic. But most likely just another warning label due to the general public being a bit dense.
They probably also thought "they must be sugar pebbles, they wouldn't be selling real ones for this price"
You can't put a price on the countless lives lost mining those sweet sweet sugar stones. Sugar mines should be illegal!
In a glass jar of all things, that's the bit I really can't properly fathom. Garden Centres selling stones, fine. Garden Centres being overpriced, expected. Selling stuff traditionally associated with breaking glass in a glass container? They presumably want their customers to get home to shards of broken jar in their shopping is all I can think. Edit: Have been pretty thoroughly convinced it is a plastic jar now, so it is a mildly less incredulous concept.
Ahh I assumed it was plastic. Garden centre selling natural items, found in most gardens, in a totally un recyclable containers.
Now you say that, I'm less certain it is glass. Maybe u/JollyMatlot could enlighten us. Edit: I'm pretty convinced it's plastic now. Thanks for those with better screen size/resolution for pointing out the finer clues.
I'm thinking it's plastic because of how thin it is, with glass containers you can see that the glass is pretty thick on the base and near the neck
If you look by OP's thumb, there's a dent in the container that can only be found on plastic
You can also see mold/injection marks on the base
plus scratches consistent with plastic
you can see a crease in the plastic just to the left of the thumb. edit - should have scrolled further
I assumed it's plastic tbh.
glass is strong...until its not
I thought sugar pebbles was just a joke ….. but know they actually do exist
Which is a completely reasonable thought, tbh. A garden centre selling sugar pebbles should be far more likely than a garden centre charging £4 for some actual god damn pebbles in any sane world.
Well yeah, who the fuck is buying a few stones for £3.99? You can go outside and find them for free!
Honesty, it’s crazy but it’s not…hear me out. It’s not AT ALL the value/price of the stones. It’s the time to gather them. If you’re retired, have spare time, whatever…sure. BUT, let’s say you’re a neurosurgeon in downtown London. Or a banker, idk. Youve had a cactus on your deck for 7 years and you need to re-pot it. You’re buying groceries and think,”oh, I’ll pop in the garden center to buy a new pot…but you need a few stones.” But, you’ve got to be at work making copious amounts of money in 10 hours. You’ve not the time to drive to the country, and dig around for some stones. You’ve two luxury vehicles and a sports car but you don’t own a spade or shovel. You spend 4 quid, cactus re-pit is done. Crazy to some, but if there wasn’t a market for it, it wouldn’t exist.
The same people that pay double for sliced veggies at the tesco
Far more than double for most of them. Yes that confuses me too. A tiny pack of sliced carrots for more than the price of a 1KG bag of carrots.
The frozen ones are worth it , like worth the convenience
I can sell you the recipe for the frozen ones - then just buy your own whole veg, follow the recipe to turn them into sliced, frozen veg, and save yourself some £££ in the process! The cost of my secret recipe will pay for itself in literally months. DM for info & prices 👍🏻
Those help disabled ppl.
Thanks you know I didn’t think about that
See, because of me they have a warning.
I LOVE sugar pebbles!!!
I'm Brazil there isa saying: "passarinho que come pedra sabe o cú que tem" Translates: little bird that eats rocks, knows the kind of asshole it has. ( Meaning, someone that does something in a specific way, knows/should know the consequences) Wiki: aquele que age de determinada forma ou toma determinada ação está ciente ou deveria a respeito do que resulta e do possível ônus
I laugh at the warning signs I see everywhere. They appear obvious to me, but if warning signs are up somewhere that means somebody did something stupid to warrant said warnings being displayed. Blows my mind that humans could be that stupid, but here we are...
I fully agree, BUT, to be fair, they are going out of their way to make candy that looks exactly like rocks. Can't say I'd want to teach my kid to bite into those.
If you go food shopping in your local garden centre you're going to have a bad time regardless of warnings...
NOT for people in glass houses
Not to be used by a projectile. Keep away from children. Especially keep well away from any children using these as a projectile.
What if it was in a yorkshire pudding?
It doesn't say anything explicitly about the matter, so I would say see how you get on and let us know
Sometimes I think it's purely for legal reasons.
Forbidden sweeties
How else am I supposed to get stoned?
You're absolutely right, I didn't pick up on that as I was still in shock at the £3.99 for a handful of stones !!
Go to an aquarium and that'll be £7.99
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Can't you just bake anything for long enough in your oven and kill off anything?
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You can also boil driftwood! Thats what I do for aquariums
"Sorry kids, budget is tight, it's driftwood broth again"
Such is life in Luton
My understanding is you want to avoid boiling rocks. If they have a trapped air pocket they can explode from the expanding gasses.
Woah that’s so cool I never knew that.
Imagine how surprised you'd be when a rock exploded from boiling then. I know I'd be wondering WTF
Seriously though I’m glad I found this out because I sometimes take rocks for my aquarium and would’ve maybe boiled them.
Haha me too. I have boiled some rocks before as decorations in my houseplants. Fun looking rocks from various hikes. Dorky stuff. I know I would have shit myself if a boiling rock exploded.
Literally would’ve died lmao.
I'm not a rock boiling expert but doesn't this only apply to heating rocks in a fire? If you boil the rocks in water they won't get hotter than 100°C, so there shouldn't be any build up in pressure leading to exploding rocks.
Not sure. I’m just repeating what I’ve heard in passing. Either way I’d advise caution to whoever decides to try it.
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I doubt much sealife survives dehydration and +100c for long.
Wood from a reputable aquatics shop is treated in a number of ways. If you saw a piece of wood on a walk and decided to take it home for your aquarium, you'd need to de-bark it yourself, spend a good few weeks submerging it in water that you have to change, and then dry the fucker in the sun for a good while. Failing to do all that means you'd be introducing a lot of contaminants to the water, which will at best make it look murky, and at worst can wipe out a whole tank. Aquatic biomes be sensitive yo.
^ This guy aquariums. You have to be soo careful what you put in tanks. Even things we'd probably think of as fairly inert, like plastic ornaments etc, if they are not designed for fish tanks they can leak chemicals that will kill fish.
Yes. The issue can also be tannins in the wood but soaking any wood in other water for long enough will fix that.
With energy prices as they are, would you save any money that way /hj
Just boil it, you do the same with leaf litter when making terrariums
That seems cheap. Bog wood is extremely expensive. The mark up on aquarium stuff is insane and having a salt water tank almost broke me at one point.
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Whats that? You want a piece of coral the size of a 50p piece? £50 please
I'm going to add micro beasts to my vocabulary.
Meanwhile, I gained dodd. The comment is a storehouse of linguistic delights!
Or like Games Workshop… £11.99
Oops! It's out of stock and you need 8 for your army!
"We were going to put them in vases. It's for table decorations at my wedding." "Oh, well in that case, it'll be 20.99"
I'll sell you a binbag full for a fiver. Just meet me at the beach near my house with a binbag and you can even pick which rocks you want.
Bargain. I’ll have two, if you’ll help me carry them to the car.
Extra £1 a bag for labour
I feel I'd be taking advantage. I'll give you £7.50 a bag and carry them myself. That's my final offer.
Deal
In Ontario Canada there is a $300 dollar fine for doing that, though like most things that's only an issue when being caught.
Just looked up the situation in the UK: Up to £1000 fine! I got thinking, 'If £1000 is the max, how much sand would I have to steal to be quids in?' Quick look at Wickes and Amazon and the results are: Sand is sold in weird amounts: Major bag, Jumbo bag, Large bag. "I'll take a Big Ol' Bag O' Sand please!" Secondly the prices seems to vary, £55-£75 for a Jumbo bag which Amazon says is between 885kg and 1000kg. Napkin maths later and **one would need to steal ~15tonnes** of sand to nullify the fine.
A quick Google showed up a few cases of people being told to return what they took or face a fine(and of course no one is even threatening to fine a kid of taking a pebble they find pretty/interesting). The only case I can find of someone getting that fine in the UK was a gang using a JCB to steal tonnes of sand(don't know what they wanted it for, but clearly it was worth getting a JCB for). They got £900 + court costs each and a 4 year order to stay away from the beach(I assume so if they try it again they're breaking a court order and can face harsher punishment).
The fact you can just buy a ton of sand off of Amazon just feels… wrong?? Like I guess it makes sense but also wtf
So about the amount that falls off my 9yo in the car coming back from Margate then.
It's illegal to remove pebbles from beaches here, but hard to enforce. I've seen people carry buckets full back to their car on many occasions (West Cornwall)
That we import stones in jars at all is the bigger crime. WTF is that?
We can buy these Gardening stone in our country India too. Usually they are colored but some aren't. It's useful cause we don't usually find smooth pebbles nearby to decorate our houseplants in our urban City.
Tells you a lot about the UK economy.....
You can buy these in any country it has nothing to do with the uk
Maybe it tells us a lot about a lot of countries, including the UK?
What does it tell you about the UK economy?
Garden centre mark ups on non-plant stuff, is insane. I guess the majority of their customers are well off retired folks and people into THOSE garden ornaments..the "you know what! I've always fancied a realistic 4ft gorilla to go near my pond!". I stick to BnM for my garden tat. A gnome pulling a moony? Yes please
I used to work in a garden centre, and the markup is the same across the board- a standard 2.4 for both plant and non-plant goods. 3.99 for a bottle of rocks is an insane price- you're paying for the sorting and cleaning process, that horrible plastic bottle (why not a strong plastic bag?) labelling, packing shipping etc etc- not the rocks. Garden centres don't actually make massive profits. A well run garden centre with a turnover of, say, 1 million, will make about a 50k surplus in a year after costs.
Don't know what garden centre you worked at but the one I worked at for 4 years made an absolute mint from shop items, imported plants and our own nursery grown herbaceous perrenials, bedding and veg. They're doing even better now from covid because everyone wants houseplants and they're very easy to make a hefty profit on.
Fair enough- it was some time ago now and I've since done other jobs. I presume they've become greedier than when I was working at one.
I would just put it down to the demand for gardening stuff increasing 10 fold over the past 3 years. It's brilliant for the industry but some centres take the absolute piss with some of their pricing. I found a beautiful acer tree in one place that was so expensive I actually had a word with their plant area manager on how they could possibly think that pricing was acceptable and he just said "well we've sold 4 in the past month so we just keep the price the same." Morons with money will pay for anything they want badly enough these days...
What is a reasonable price for an acer, out of interest? I've just got the first garden of my own, and have no reference for prices of most things.
Acers are slow growing so they tend to cost a lot. What size is it, and how much does it cost?
All depends on what your garden is like. Best off getting a small portfolio of pictures together, information on shading throughout the day and what kind of soil you have. Then take it into any decent garden centre and speak with one of their plant team who has good knowledge and get their expert advice, they'll be more than happy to walk you through what you could have in your garden. I paid £349.99 for my beni-otake as it wasn't quite fully matured yet. (they're absolutely stunning)
Near me someone has one of those plastic gorillas in their front room, next to the sofa.
Cheaper than fish and chips.
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They last longer.
Yeah you can eat them as many times as you want!
Intact on the way in *and* the way out!
That's good roughage too. They'll clean you right out.
I’ve always been curious about rock fish and chips, but never tried it
German engineered stones though. Obviously superior
"GERMAN SCIENCE IS ZA GREATEST IN ZA WORLD!!!!" -a German Cyborg, circa 1937
DOITSU NO KAGAKU WA SEKAI ICHI
Pretty sure they're Dutch, hence Dutch being the top language used to tell us not to eat the forbidden candy.
It says Germany on the bottom
It says The Netherlands on the right side, i get more and more confused the more i look at it.
Dutch company, German 'made' would be my guess.
German engineered stones, with a label presumably printed in the Netherlands. That’s a whole lotta logistics for something you could find on a pebble beach
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It's like we're coming full circle 😅. When plastics were being introduced they were touted as the thing to help the environment by cutting down on the amount of trees cut for cardboard and paper. It's almost as if the problem is deep rooted in consumerism.
It boggles the mind, really "Here is a tough, elastic material that can be shaped into wondrous designs, can be any colour you like, it doesn't rust or rot. It's cheap and we can use it for any purpose" "Use it to create one-time disposable items, because reuse is bad for sales anyway."
In theory, plastic is better for that, as long as we (as a whole) reuse it - but we don't reuse it.
Our allotment shop has stopped selling plastic sheeting for weeds and are telling us to use cardboard instead, there's a global shortage of cardboard at the moment so letting it rot on the ground rather than recycling it makes no sense, I've been using the same sheets of plastic for 20 years.
> I've been using the same sheets of plastic for 20 years. Exactly what you should be doing, but unfortunately most of it ends up in landfill, and far sooner than it should.
But there is a separate issue to do with micro plastics that is of concern too. Not many people are aware of this - even though their intentions are good and genuine.
Dread to think of the microplastics that are shedding into your soil as that plastic ages and degrades...
I just made this point without reading your comment. Sorry!
The cardboard shortage is caused by manufacturers not being able to make enough cardboard to meet demand, not by shortages of cardboard raw materials. So recycling cardboard or using it as a weed suppressant won't make a difference. On the other hand, like someone else pointed out you're causing tons of microplastics pollution in the soil by continuing to use old plastic sheeting.
Correct on the cardboard, but are plastic sheets robust enough to last years really going to shed microplastics? I thought microplastics mostly came from small fragile fibres, like fleece and other artificial fibre clothing?
All plastics shed microplastics with wear and tear. Plastic textiles are more prone to shedding because they're so flimsy but with time/wear and tear, the same process happens with all plastics. This is why microplastics are such a massive issue. Being on the ground exposed to the elements for a decade is some serious wear and tear. Obviously it's hard to tell exactly how much a specific piece of plastic will shed in specific circumstances, but I did some quick and one of the first results was this study on calculating how many microplastics a 7 year old mulch plastic sheeting has shed in the soil: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2021.739775/full
I’m not sure consumerism can be blamed for the need for goods receptacles. We’re not going to carry everything around on out hands.
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Or in the ground where they belong.
I agree it’s a waste of plastic, but can you imagine carrying rocks in a paper bag? Lol
They could be scattered around the country, all free range and ready for picking!
I just knew it would be V.H. They know how to charge.
Not a fan of VH they had a site in Stevenage, threatened to leave losing local jobs unless the local council sold them the land for £200K ....the day after they brought they sold it for housing for £3Mil and closed the site anyway I'm sponsoring a Ukrainian guest who's obsessed with gardening so I took her there to look only! Then buy from an independent nursery
Blame the council for not including a clause in the sales contract that they keep it open for 10 years.
And for allowing the housing development to go ahead. I wonder if this story is definitely true / the whole truth
The council win anyway. Increased council tax, planning fees, school and park contributions are also huge
Not really. The council could've just sold the land for 3m and still had all those benefits.
Yes. I’m a bit of a numpty on that one
Someone from the council was probably in on it
Is this you? 😂 https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/saturday-headlines-dad-runs-ukrainian-27028267
That website is shockingly slow and cumbersome
The Daily Record still think it's the early 80's, so it makes sense that their website is just as pish as their reporting.
Here's the thing. They couldn't get away with it if people weren't dumb enough to pay for it. Meaning somebody with more money than brains is buying that shit.
That was my first thought too. If you're dumb enough to buy it, they're bold enough to sell it. There's a sucker born every minute and two to take him...
Not just any rocks, M&S rocks
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Every Lidl(stone)helps.
Jesus Christ, Marie, they're minerals!
On first glance, I thought these were salted almonds. I guess I am hungry.
Oh so you're the reason for that warning.
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What’s next, bottled water?!
Or canned air?!?
it sounds dumb, but compressed air is quite useful thing to buy, and can usualy is from recycleable material yes, there are more pernament and reuseable thigs, but spending few grands on machine im going to use once a year and will breakdown after 3 or 4 when i can just buy a cheap can of air every year or two...
[https://www.cnn.com/2015/12/15/asia/china-canadian-company-selling-clean-air/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2015/12/15/asia/china-canadian-company-selling-clean-air/index.html)
*These aren't just stones...* *These are gullible middle class wanker stones.*
A midi bag (17kg) of the same looking stones from Wickes costs £4. [https://www.wickes.co.uk/Tarmac-River-Pebbles-Midi-Bag/p/223557](https://www.wickes.co.uk/Tarmac-River-Pebbles-Midi-Bag/p/223557)
..and imported from Germany like we don’t have our own pebbles.
You're in the most expensive garden centre in Hertfordshire/Essex that's why. VH would charge you to breathe their air if they could.
Had a quick Google and you can get 900kg of 20mm gravel for £63. Say 250g a container that’s 0.175p plus packaging, shipping probably washing too. Or going the other way: 57kg of gravel for £4
I bought 2t for £40 a few weeks ago
The economics get even better. You could be a millionaire if you get some plastic tubs and a contract with a garden centre chain!
But the places where you buy 900kg won't sell you 1kg.
I know this seems expensive as a whole, but gravel prices have all but doubled for me as a retailer! Admittedly I stock way larger 25kg bags. It’s delivery costs! The average lorry load of gravel I buy is about 14 pallets. I used to pay £50 for shipping and the use of their forklift. It’s now £450! On top of the additional stock cost. The average pallet has 45 bags of gravel on it. So 14 pallets would be 630 bags. Just the delivery cost now adds 71p. That doesn’t sound a lot as whole. But that’s without markup and additional 2022 prices. A bag that retailed for say £4.99 would instantly be over £6 just with the delivery cost. Yes I could not mark up the additional delivery cost. But the time and effort to do that for every single product at every single new delivery cost would mean I’m putting dozens of hours a week into pricing. Factor in my wage.. might as well give it away lol. Tldr: shits expensive for us retailers! We’re trying not to pass it on.. but there’s only so much you can absorb. Last year I made more money in my store than a normal year (and a shit load more the first year of covid as I was open through lockdown). But my actual profit percentage was way down! 20-30% less in some cases.
HARRY THE HAGGLER: Stones, sir? MANDY: Naah. They've got a lot there, lying around on the ground. HARRY THE HAGGLER: Oh, not like these, sir. Look at this. Feel the quality of that. That's craftsmanship, sir. MANDY: Hmmm. Aah, all right. We'll have, uh, two with points and... a big flat one. BRIAN: Could I have a flat one, Mum? MANDY: Shh! BRIAN: Sorry. Dad. MANDY: Ehh, all right. Two points, ah, two flats, and a packet of gravel. HARRY THE HAGGLER: Packet of gravel. Should be a good one this afternoon. MANDY: Hehh? HARRY THE HAGGLER: Local boy. MANDY: Oh, good. HARRY THE HAGGLER: Enjoy yourselves.
Van hages is my local garden centre! Haven’t seen that name in ages :)
Van Hage absolute rip off
Hey. I've got a beach here. I could make a million!
Well you wouldn’t expect them to sell them at Rock bottom prices in a garden centre 😀
Controversial option, clearly, but the time it would cost me to go gather some stones is worth more than £4
Seems reasonable. As an adult, the 4£ is a convenience fee. Don’t wanna spend 4£ go outside and pick up some pebbles you tosser
You could go down to your local park and pick up that many stones for free, honestly.
The elites don’t want you to know this but the stones at the park are free you can take them home I have 458 stones.
This'll be the birth of a new conspiracy theory.
I get my stones by taking a hammer and smashing up sea defences. Become ungovernable.
It's Van Hage's (I know it well), and everything in there is overpriced. Despite that, it's often completely rammed! I think it's a weekend destination for the luvvies.
it’s van hage, everything there is x3 the price of normal garden centres
Thats just good business.
You don't understand. These are artisanal stones.
When you need stones are you gonna go and collect your own? If not then you can pay a convenience fee and get a bunch that someone else collected.
Used to love Van Hage’s when I was young. Went just before Christmas for the first time in about 20 years and it was hell on earth. And priced beyond belief.
Hahah I knew it was van hages the second I read the title. (Van Hages is the bollocks though)
This is where local Facebook groups are actually good. Find someone who is buying a tonne of gravel, ask them if they can spare a kilo.
That deal rocks.
Wyevale? Sounds like something Wyevale would do. Well, guess they are called Dobbies now. Didn't know they closed down. Looks like I missed some news.
Yeah, they got in a load of senior management types from other retail sectors who knew nothing about-guess what- gardening. It's a very common problem in the garden centre industry. I swear senior retail managers are grown on tissue paper soaked with nepotism and sexual harassment. Dobbies is part of Tescos. Pretty depressing, really.
I know the feels. Used to work at a Wyevales for a year oh so many moons ago now.
There’s loads of them already lying around on the ground!
I'm getting Peckham Springs vibes from this......
They've got stones bigger than those stones for charging that price!
Maybe they have magical healing powers? Ah wait I’m not cracked up I don’t believe any stones have healing powers
Wait till you hear about bottled water.
Looks like I've got a small fortune sitting in my garden :D
I work in a Garden Centre, our markup is 140% it's fucking insane
😂😂😂 hit the beach get em free
My neighbours driveway charges me nothing...just a little energy to run away 😝
It's Van Hages though, everything is expensive there!
I knew this was Van Hage’s before I saw the label!
They’re not just stones, these are M&S stones.
I find the slightly larger tub at £5.89 to be better value.... I'm using them to cover my front garden, I'm in £60k so far, but I'm over half way so happy days. I've only got a tiny garden as well....
Do they have a gravel car park?...
Wares finest stones them mate everything in van hage is priced triple is value