H&M, Wal-Mart Destroy Unsold Clothing

big tax write offs are a huge perk for clothing donations as long as you have the documentation to prove the donation of each item. they can and should but wont.

Originally posted by xsheep
starred and flagged

About time someone pointed the finger to the insane waste of good food
and other recyclable items that are thrown out as garbage


How can a anyone throw away food/clothing
when their neighbors(People in their community )
are cold and hungry


there are many charities that would be glad of such stuff
and all it takes is a phone call to find out ...which charity needs what

It is called greed. If we cant sell it, no one will have it. Greed Arrogance, and a lack of compassion are what is going to destroy us.

I used to work at H&M and the first time they asked me to do this I refused. They had someone else do it, so the next time I volunteered and stuffed all of it into my locker in the back room. From that day forth little by little I would take these clothes out with me at the end of the night and give them to my local Goodwill. That policy is a bunch of BS and really needs to be looked at.

I did not read all replies, so it was probably mentioned before, but I worked retail once, stock boy, it is common place in almost all store chains to ruin unsold clothing.

You know that shirt you bought? The one with the loose thread or the little hole? It gets destroyed even further and thrown out.

Originally posted by never2late
WalMart is a horrible company, and I should know, I worked at one for a summer about 3 years ago. I have loads of info about them. There are 15 walmart stores within 44 miles of my front door. Ever gone around back behind a walmart? Notice anything missing? Big garbage cans found behind any normal place of business. Walmart has incinerators that everything is thrown into with the exception of cardboard (i'll get back to that in a minute). After the incinerator does it's work, water is mixed and seeps out to 1 of 2 "drainage ditches" found out back that they claim stores rain water during a storm only. Now for the cardboard. Walmart doesn't burn or dispose of cardboard because it's sold to someone else. They have big compacting machines where all the scrap cardboard and empty boxes are thrown into. Once enough is in there, ties are placed around it and it's hauled out to big storage containers like thiswww.kkcontainers.com...
Maybe this isn't how things are done at every walmart, but I know for a fact that's how they are done down here. I've personally thrown things into the incinerator and the compactor. I've got more info if you have the time.

The problem with these big discount stores is that they have to sell a huge volume of merchandise to be able to show profit. They simply can't afford to lower the prices any further whereas sears or macys can give a 30%-40% discount and STILL show a marginal profit.

Another problem with the discount stores is that they have to cut corners left and right to keep expenses down to a minimum. That means minimum staff, few people get overtime, small coffee/lunch breaks, spartan enviroment with little decor.

[edit on 12-1-2010 by EarthCitizen07]

Discount stores are not the problem. They are entreprenuerial enterprises which the bold often had calculated their odds and risks to the very last cent.

The issue starts when they start to cut operational overhead costs such as wages. Yes, many employers will often allude to 'market forces dictate.' when it comes to salary scales. But how much is too much or too little when it is either called exploitation or slavery?

There needs to be a line drawn somewhere, even if the boss himself accepts a $2,000 salary ( which I doubt very much the Walmart CEO accepts on top of his perks, a joke really) under the hypocrisy of 'noble' sacrifice to serve the poor.

And the real problem and topic of this thread is not about how companies function, but rather - WHAT they do to their EXPIRED and UNWANTED products, which prevents it from reaching to the needy and the less priviledge that exist in every society.

reply to post by SeekerofTruth101


Yes, the bottom line is what do they do with unwanted and outdated merchandise. If your a top retailer you re-sell some of that merchandise to discount stores while discarding the rest. By discarding that probably means waste. I don't think they recycle anything as their isn't a recycling market for retail merchandise. They could donate stuff to charities and some companies do but most prefer to destroy stuff for reasons already mentioned in this thread.

If your walmart, kmart, target or any other big discounter your options are much more limited because there is no secondary market and the prices are already at rock bottom.

My 2 cents woth...I don't like capitalism but that doesn't mean we can't discuss the pros and cons.

Originally posted by EarthCitizen07
If your walmart, kmart, target or any other big discounter your options are much more limited because there is no secondary market and the prices are already at rock bottom.

Actually Target donates big time in both cash and outdated merchandise to the needy and poor. target-addict.blogspot.com...

Why can't the other stores do the same if Target can?

Guess who will receive my business. Walmart?

reply to post by Jim Scott

Originally posted by Jim Scott

I say deport our criminal prison population to islands of refuge in the South Pacific so they can deal with each other at their own expense and hard labor. After that, you'll have enough money to pay for free college and free health insurance for millions who presently are unable to afford it. What the heck, Britain did it ---- now we call it Australia.


[edit on 1/7/2010 by Jim Scott]

Yeah and all the locals of the island get killed instead of the place where the problem occurred just shifting the problem to a completely innocent (in this case) group of people

Countries should deal with there own problems in there country not export the problem to someone else's.

They could at-least have given the items to charity by cutting off all tags, labels, and logos from the clothing or just got $10 worth of sharpies and blacked out everything.

Is it really that hard to cut off a Nike swoosh or any other logo off something clothing leaving a hole in it but otherwise usable.

Most coats have logos just below the shoulders on either the left or right side
and it would not be that hard to just slash all the coats in that spot.

Good post, good topic. S & F

This is not to explicitly rag on WalMart on my part but to show the arrogant corp. attitude prevalent in America.

Well, my comment is to explicitly rag on Walmart. As someone with personal experience with the company, I cannot express enough the degree of selfishness, mistreatment of both employees and customers, and corruption within the company. Walmart is becoming more and more an automated business. By that I mean very few decisions are actually being made by people - they're being made by a computer. A computer is free from emotion and any sense of right and wrong. So is Walmart. They'll blame the mix-up on the system.

I worked midnights at walmart over the summer here in canada. we were doing renovations to it.
the # I saw disgusted me.

We had to take down a ceiling fan display, you know those...you walk in the isle and theres fans all above you, yeah brand new fans. we took them down with care only to find out they were going directly to the compacter in the back.

there was a memory foam matrice i had to dispose of, I had to throw it in a 12 foot dumpster out back and was told to cut the # out of it first, maul it with my box cutter to it was un-usable to any scavengers. I didnt, i just threw it in there, i figured if someone wants it bad enough, they deserve it.

Ive seen them throw shopping carts full of food into the compactor because it was nearing its expiration date, it was 3 days away! they should give that # to a shelter on the stipulation that it is cooked and served that day. im sure shelters would love to have that.

------
any thing you take back to walmart, ANYTHING, is taken to the back, the UPC is scanned and then it is thrown into the compactor. (unless its a hazardous material, spray paint, paint, cleaners, etc)



walmart is disgusting

Maybe we need a thirdary market? It just does NOT make any sense to discard anything for so many #ing reasons.

1)First THEY pollute the enviroment MUCH MORE than is necessary.

2)They should order LESS merchandise or be more careful in stacking up items that have a questionable demand.

3)They don't have to donate anything if they don't want to since it is THEIR merchandise but throwing away items just to protect the label is ABSOLUTE STUPIDTY! Why not build several off-site warehouses and stack up items that don't get easily sold? At that point they can re-sell those items at a big discount to a goodwill/charity foundation AND STILL COLLECT A FEW BUCKS rather than nothing at all OR re-stock stores with this "outdated merchandise" at some later point and thus make sales...

4)Cut off any labels and spray paint stuff with graffiti, THEN donate directly to charity! The needy will stay warm and the companies can still sell their coveted and overpriced merchandise. Everybody wins and everybody is happy...............Does it take a genius to figure out solutions?

I think its PURELY a case of non-caring greed that dooms our world and its people. This will lead to their demise and the sooner, THE BETTER!

That's wrong of Walmart,they should give those clothes to the needy. If they would do that,it would be a great gesture on their part!