This week the New York Times reported a disheartening story about two of the largest retail chains. You see, instead of taking unsold items to sample sales or donating them to people in need, H&M and Wal-Mart have been throwing them out in giant trash bags. And in the case that someone may stumble on these bags and try to keep or re-sell the items, these companies have gone ahead and slashed up garments, cut off the sleeves of coats, and sliced holes in shoes so they are unwearable.This unsettling discovery was made by graduate student Cynthia Magnus outside the back entrance of H&M on 35th street in New York City. Just a few doors down, she also found hundreds of Wal-Mart tagged items with holes made in them that were dumped by a contractor. On December 7, she spotted 20 bags of clothing outside of H&M including, "gloves with the fingers cut off, warm socks, cute patent leather Mary Jane school shoes, maybe for fourth graders, with the instep cut up with a scissor, men’s jackets, slashed across the body and the arms. The puffy fiber fill was coming out in big white cotton balls.”The New York Times points out that one-third of the city's population is poor, which makes this behavior not only wasteful and sad, but downright irresponsible. Wal-Mart spokeswoman, Melissa Hill, acted surprised that these items were found, claiming they typically donate all unworn merchandise to charity. When reporters went around the corner from H&M to a collections drop-off for charity organization New York Cares, spokesperson Colleen Farrell said, “We’d be glad to take unworn coats, and companies often send them to us."After several days of no response from H&M, the company made a statement today, promising to stop destroying the garments at the midtown Manhattan location. They said they will donate the items to charity. H&M spokeswoman Nicole Christie said, "It will not happen again," and that the company would make sure none of the other locations would do so either. Hopefully that's the final word.
2 comments:
It's unbelievable to think that some people could be so heartlessly wasteful. Hopefully they stay true to their world. Thanks for the info.
Ok - confession.
When I worked at Hallmark, I was in charge of damages. So i would sit in our back room and break things. Seriously. I had this huge trash barrel and hammer and I had to break all the "damaged" goods from our 13 stores until they were completely unrecognizable. Cut up balloons, smash little precious moments people, I even once had to tear apart a teddy bear because it would randomly say "I love you" (or whatever it said) when you didn't even touch it. creeper.
And the reason they told me was that since these things were broken, they were a liability. So say we didn't smash them, someone could cut themselves on say, a dish, and then sue us. Or, more likely, they could take the broken teddy bear from the trash, bring it to another store, return it, get a new one.
So I'm not saying smashing is the only solution, it's just that these companies aren't doing it to be mean. First of all, if they're throwing it out, it's damaged in some way - so it may not be safe (unlikely, but possible). Secondly, they both have really lenient return policies, if they give it away, and people just return it, they lose money. Now, you may say "who cares?" Walmart is huge! Well, all the people who go there because they can get good (ish) clothes for cheap do, and the handicapped greeter guy who wouldn't get a job anywhere else does. And that money lost will be re-gained from those people.
It's not a happy fact, but there are a lot of people very willing to scam/lie/cheat big companies. And so the companies will defend themselves, sometimes very misguidedly.
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