FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

THE Home Depot® TO BEGIN USING ENVIRONMENTALLY SOUND ALTERNATIVE TO CONVENTIONAL WOOD PALLETS

Chep Pallet Management System Provides Higher Quality Pallets at Lower Cost

ATLANTA, April 13, 2000 — The Home Depot, the world’s largest home improvement retailer, today announced that it is asking its vendors to begin shipping products to all of the company’s 964 stores and 47 distribution centers using an environmentally sound alternative to conventional wood pallets. The system, operated by Chep USA, an Orlando-based New York General Partnership, provides a nationwide "pallet pool" in which pallets are delivered to Home Depot vendors, are loaded and shipped to Home Depot retail locations or distribution centers and then are returned to Chep service centers for inspection and repair. Because CHEP pallets are fully recycled, wood waste is drastically reduced.

"Wood use efficiency is a major part of Home Depot’s environmental initiatives," said Wayne Gibson, senior vice president - imports and logistics. "Particularly as we double in size over the next three years, to 1,900 stores, and have more than 60 million pallets in use, the Chep system ensures that the wood used in our pallets will be employed to its fullest potential."

Among all industries, millions of conventional "one-way" single-use wood pallets are currently discarded as waste after delivery, which makes wood pallets the seventh largest source of municipal solid waste in the United States, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Home Depot noted that, while the industry has made some progress in recycling conventional wood pallets, it cannot match the level of recycling offered by the Chep pallet pooling system.

"The typical Home Depot store uses more than 30,000 pallets in a year," Gibson said. "On average, nearly 10,000 of those pallets currently end up in landfills after only one use, mainly because they are of such low quality."

Gibson said the Chep system should enable Home Depot to avoid discarding almost 10 million pallets annually at its current size, and more than 18 million per year by the end of 2002, substantially decreasing pressure on forest resources worldwide.

In addition, Gibson said, Chep pallets will cost less per shipment than conventional wood pallets. Their higher quality will help minimize shipping damage, and their standard 48-by-40-inch size will make it easier for vendors to handle and load trailers.

"They’re cheaper to use, they’re consistently higher in quality than conventional pallets, and they offer huge environmental advantages, particularly with regard to waste reduction" he said.

Home Depot has successfully used the Chep system in Canada, where the company operates 54 stores, since 1993.

"We proved the viability of the Chep system within our operations in Canada," Gibson said. "We’ve essentially eliminated pallet waste and have realized substantial amounts in cost savings, and this has benefited our vendors as much as it has Home Depot."

Several Home Depot suppliers are currently using the CHEP system, and the company is actively working to move other vendors to Chep.

"The Home Depot and its largest suppliers will need to collaborate on the implementation of the CHEP program to deliver the highest return to the entire supply chain," said Bob Moore, CEO, Chep. "Because the environmental and productivity benefits are so great, we expect most of the leading home and hardware vendors will be on the program by the end of the year and the majority of Home Depot’s volume will be shipped on CHEP pallets by the end of 2001."

Founded in 1978, Atlanta-based Home Depot currently operates 962 stores in 45 states, five Canadian provinces, Puerto Rico and Chile. The company was recently named in America’s Top 10 Most Admired Companies by Fortune magazine, which has also ranked it as America’s Most Admired Specialty Retailer for seven consecutive years. Its stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE:HD) and is included in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.

Chep is a worldwide organization that operates in more than 30 countries on six continents and controls more than 122 million pallets and 15 million containers. The company supports the consumer goods, food, home improvement, housewares and automotive industries with an equipment pooling network that reduces supply chain costs. For more information on Chep, please visit the company’s website at www.chep.com.

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For further information, contact:

John Simley, The Home Depot (U.S.) (770) 384-2792

David Day, The Home Depot (Canada) (416) 412-6825

Ron Margulis, RAM Communications (908) 232-3230