Imagine if Home Depot or Lowe’s were the target of a nationwide ad in the USA, playfully criticizing the hardware retail giants for selling glyphosate. In Australia, that’s precisely what has transpired. The leading home improvement retailer Down Under—Bunning’s—was the subject of a satirical commercial, created by Consumer watchdog group SumOfUs. 

Australian news website, The New Daily reports that the spoof video was released last week, and is titled ‘Toxic Roundup STILL on sale at Bunnings’.

The ad mimics the look and feel of Bunning’s ubiquitous television ads that feature employees clad in their trademark green aprons.

“Countries are banning it. Other stores are pulling it from sale. But Australia’s largest hardware chain still packs its shelves with the toxic weed killer, Roundup,” the video description reads.

But the goal of the humorous campaign by SumOfUs is no laughing matter. The Australian consumer advocacy group urges consumers to “tell Bunnings Warehouse to put safety before profits and pull Roundup off its shelves now” by signing a petition titled ‘Bunnings: drop Roundup now‘.

According to the petition, despite the fact that Bunnings still sells Roundup, the glyphosate-based herbicide has been the focus of bans in Germany, France, Vietnam, and Belgium. The petition also references the tens of thousands of lawsuits all over the world (over 125,000 in the United States alone) filed by cancer victims. 

Despite the lawsuits and the $10 billion-plus settlement to resolve the bulk of the 125,000 lawsuits filed at the state level in the U.S. announced by Bayer AG, back in June, “you can still buy hundreds of bottles of Roundup at your local Bunnings Warehouse,” the petition says.

SumOfUs also mentions in its petition that last year, Costco removed glyphosate-products from its shelves in both the US and Australia, as did the UK’s largest hardware retailer, B&Q. 

SumOfUs points out that Britain’s largest home hardware chain B&Q “voluntarily removed all glyphosate-based products earlier this year, following a similar move by Costco in the US and Australia”.To see the video on YouTube, click here or watch below.