Amazon Sending Millions of Brand-New, unopened Items to the Dump

Why not open a charity ?
Why not open a discount shop?
Why not auction on ebay?

UTTERLY disgusting really, as people all over the world hit the poverty margin these items could be of a huge help to struggling young families

a reply to: lordcomac

Some of the local shelters and pantries accept donations of items that are approaching their best sell by date. The stores are not allowed to give away anything that has expired, even though it is is still good, and most people that are in need, do not care that an item is a couple days past their best sell date, but the stores have to throw them in the trash.

We are wasteful and we are very litigious. This creates a huge problem for charity organizations that try to fill the divide, and for those in need.

Very few things annoy me as much as waste. I am extremely frugal and I pray every day and night, that the day will not come, when I will regret with great sorrow, all the food, and water I have wasted over the years. My waste nightmare is to look out over a barren, dusty, landscape, while I succumb to hunger and thirst.

On a lighter note. I spent $2.55 for 2 medium size tomatoes three days ago. I was watering my garbage tomatoes and saw only one flower. I said to myself, "God, at these prices, I am going to need a few more tomatoes than this. Today I watered my garbage tomatoes, and there where 10 flowers. They all looked healthy and pollinated. I have two or more months to go, but at least there will be tomatoes in my future, for a little while. My cherry tomatoes have not flowered yet, but they seem to be hanging in there, They do better in the fall anyway.

I also found a turmeric root on my counter, it was sprouting so I planted it. I am still harvesting from the onions from last year. I love garbage gardens. They are easy, no fuss ways to produce food, with the special bonus of what you already paid for, continues to provide.

More food. Less waste. It benefits many, in the end.

originally posted by: Edumakated

originally posted by: lakenheath24
Christ....take a look at the stats on food waste.

Just a teaser...

"The food currently lost or wasted in Latin America could feed 300 million people "

"In the United States 30 per cent of all food, worth US$48.3 billion (€32.5 billion), is thrown away each year. It is estimated that about half of the water used to produce this food also goes to waste since agriculture is the largest human use of water."

"United Kingdom households waste an estimated 6.7 million tonnes of food every year, around one-third of the 21.7 million tonnes purchased. This means that approximately 32 per cent of all food purchased per year is not eaten."

And so on and so forth.....

www.unep.org...

What it tells you is that capitalism is efficient when it comes to production.

Capitalism is so efficient we produce waste... socialism so inefficient it produces bread lines.

With food, a big issue is regulations and liability. Sure, the food could feed those in need but you have liability related to spoilage.

I wouldn't disagree but at-least discount it for amazon employees inside the workplace

Super markets do the same, before it goes out on the shelfs in the discount section for customers, which is usually mobbed, its offered up to employees as an extra benefit of working in the shop, which is great tbh Amazon should do the same, but as people have mentioned probably at a cost to them, but its not at a cost if it keeps its employees happy for the duration of their contracted slave labor months/hours

a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn

the deal with food, that is cooked or expired is liability from the U.S. being a sue happy country.

my mother use to work for the food service of a hospital. they would let employees and homeless shelters have the food that was left over from the cafeteria side.

a new hospital group bought the hospital that she worked for and they stopped employees from doing that. but continued to let homeless shelters take it. it was only about 6 months after that they they stopped the shelters.

she asked why and they told her it was a liability from the a insurance stand point and not worth the risk.

I kinda thought stuff like this was common knowledge..

The waste certainly isnt "good," but the real world issue(s) is logistics of distribution. Particularly making sure we consider long term, real world scenarios rather than an approach that is based solely in "idealz'n'feelz." Thats a whole topic in and of itself.

Sure, plenty will blame "capitalism," but its not particularly accurate and is based more in ideological opposition than the real world. Alllll of the issues we see with capitalism are present in every other system we have attempted as a species and capitalism clearly provides the most effective system (so far) in minimizing actual, real world negative impacts.

The most straightforward solution is to use modern technology to manufacture, grow, or harvest goods in a localized manner. We have what we need to do that already, at least to a good degree, but implementing it requires participation at the individual level. That also means breaking from thousands of years of centralized tradition and would very likely kneecap some of the most powerful organizations in the world. An uphill battle, to say the least.

The most likely, though convoluted scenario is if Amazon can find a "solution" that is easily marketable to give them the visage of benevolence. First though, they will need to increase awareness of the issues in the general public. This might seem counterintuitive, but its just a redirecting of emotion and people dont remember much beyond a couple weeks anyway. In this, they wouldnt need to actually implement something that helps people, they would just need to control the flow of information and inject a PR narrative of "helping the world." Then, they can just keep doing what they are doing and blame some random group of "others" for the situation remaining a problem. This also has the added benefit of inculcating Brand loyalty, increased market control, etc.

People who question it can simply be demonized as "wanting people to starve/die."

Cool maybe BLM will loot the dump with their antifa friends.

a reply to: misskat1

Amazon does auction off pallets of random items. I've seen YouTube's where people are buying a pile of stuff for cheep then selling it at flea markets.

There's also a tv show about that on A&E, called 'Extreme Unboxing'
www.aetv.com...

I only watched a few episodes, but it was interesting. Usually they find some pretty good stuff. Occasionally they get a big box of worthless crap.


I would have thought anyone would rather choose to do that, as opposed to just sending it all to the dump. Amazon must have soo much stuff coming in, that they simply don't have enough space to store it in, while awaiting people to buy it through online auctions.

originally posted by: lakenheath24
a reply to: Edumakated

Efficient? More like overzealous and subsidized in a lot of cases.

Ford doesnt crush 50,000 cars a years do they?
Wimpy don't burn down 30% of their new homes do they?

They generate a lot of waste with individual components. Comparing to a fully assembled car isn't quite an apples to apples comparison.

god bless Capitalism.

It's got electrolytes!

originally posted by: lordcomac
a reply to: lakenheath24


This is what happens when cheap slave made goods flood the world- the cost and liability to restock returns is greater than the profit margin when re-selling them.
It's cheaper to throw away returns rather than re-stock and re-sell them. The same thing happens at a small scale on ebay- if an item is shipped and it arrives defective in any way, rather than dealing with returning the product the seller will just have you trash it, and they'll send another from stock.

Especially with food, there's an inherent risk with returns. Once the item leaves their hands, they have to assume the product is tainted- if it came back to them poisoned and was re-sold to another person, the logistics of tracking down the source would be a nightmare- not to mention the potential lawsuits, and then added insurance costs...
Cheaper to bin it.

This is just one more reason you should always make an effort to purchase locally, and support your local economy.

If there is that much waste, someone will figure out how to take it off the hands of the original manufacturer and sell it. Again, capitalism is efficient.

A good example of this is a company that sells bad fruit and vegetables. This company takes "blim" food that can't be sold at normal grocery stores and sells it at a discount.

Misfits Market

Most outlet stores are just a way for companies to sell damaged goods. The clothing sold at outlet malls for a discount is often sized wrong, seams not lined up... Maybe ok for a typical buyer, but not up to the quality standards of the company. So instead of throwing it away, they resell cheaper.

If Amazon is producing that much waste, I am sure someone if figuring out a model to utilize the goods one way or another.

Capitalism encourages creativity and if there is money to be made, someone will figure it out.

I wonder how many people just return empty boxes to Amazon, or maybe fill them with trash, with the hopes that they will get their refund, but no one will ever actually check the contents of their returned package....

Not much irks me more than food waste and littering, sadly I am the only person within 2-3 blocks in my small community that even recycles or gardens at all. Not to get all environmentalist mode (I own a full size truck) but even taking small steps can do wonders.

Sadly, everyone is fat and lazy whilst reading their copy of White Fragility and stuffing themselves to the brim with Big Macs to care.

Amazon are horrible and I can thankfully admit I have only used them once because I find Ebay a better alternative, the bidding system leads to much better deals overall despite taking more time and effort.

originally posted by: RussianSpy
Not much irks me more than food waste and littering, sadly I am the only person within 2-3 blocks in my small community that even recycles or gardens at all. Not to get all environmentalist mode (I own a full size truck) but even taking small steps can do wonders.

Sadly, everyone is fat and lazy whilst reading their copy of White Fragility and stuffing themselves to the brim with Big Macs to care.

Amazon are horrible and I can thankfully admit I have only used them once because I find Ebay a better alternative, the bidding system leads to much better deals overall despite taking more time and effort.

Big Macs are expensive so I just main line lard to hold me over till I forage enough change outside wal mart to get my fix.

originally posted by: lakenheath24
"About 124,000 items at Dunfermline were labeled “destroy” during a single week in April, according to an internal document obtained by ITV News. Just 28,000 items were set aside for donations during the same period. About half of all the stuff that’s trashed are things that people returned, a former Amazon employee told ITV. While the other half are “unopened and still in their shrink wrap,” the ex-employee said."

That is a single factory in the UK. Now multiply that times the hundreds of Amazon depots and you got waste on a scale that cant be imagined. I mean, how cheap are things that they can afford to toss this much stuff and still make a massive profit?

And the food? Christ, aint nobody on earth needs to go hungry really.

Enough to send Bezos to the Moon apparently.

www.theverge.com...

Personally, I was thinking of tailing one of these trucks to the dump and scoring some goods...to sell on E-Bay. lol
Here is a vid of the same subject with a whistleblower.

And the people running this company are virtue signaling to their consumers about the climate and waste..

A lot of items that Amazon dumps are Chinese counterfeits some that have been returned as counterfeits.

Once they have been identified as counterfeits, Amazon can not resell them.
arstechnica.com...
abcnews.go.com...

It's a dumpster dive.
Used and damaged goods are not Amazon's specialty.
They really don't want their unsold stuff showing up on Ebay.
Very wasteful and very spiteful.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus

originally posted by: lakenheath24
I mean, how cheap are things that they can afford to toss this much stuff and still make a massive profit?

Amazon isn't paying for it, the suppliers are.

Then that cost goes to the consumer.

They could have given that food to shelters.

originally posted by: TruthJava
Then that cost goes to the consumer.

Not necessarily. If that supplier is looking to do business with Amazon they are going to work on very low margins so attempting to pass that on would preclude that low margin operating structure.