Wal-Mart's current garden center policies are destroying opportunities to feed homeless people, communities, and create volunteer positions.

   Currently, Wal-Mart takes any vegetable, fruit, or tomato plants that they deem "non-sellable" or out of season, and throws them all away. If you are to ask an employee if you can take these plants, they tell you "no, the company requires that they be thrown away." In a local Walmart store, they are throwing away bags full of perfectly fine plants. I cannot even imagine the number of plants that are thrown away at Wal-Marts all over the world.

  Wal-Mart prides itself as a humanitarian company, but I am not seeing that with this policy. Wal-Mart should donate these plants to shelters, community gardens, or places like Heifer international. Wal-Mart could easily allocate part of their massive parking lots as a community garden and help the people who live in their communities. This also would create jobs or volunteer positions for people to come care for these plants. 

  One tomato plant can yield up to twenty pounds of fruit per season. Imagine how many people Wal-Mart could stop from going hungry just by making a small change.