Discard & Destroy: Walmart, H&M etc.
This week, it was revealed that retail giant Walmart and H&M took capitalist greed to a new level by slashing and burning what they could not sell. For these pillars of capitalism, instead of taking unsold items to sample sales or donating them to people in need (and there are many, especially in these very tough economic times where one-third of New York City’s population is poor), H&M and Wal-Mart have been throwing them out in giant trash bags. For good measure and to ensure that people who stumble on these bags of unsold items do not try to keep or re-sell them, these companies have gone ahead and slashed up garments, cut off the sleeves of coats, and sliced holes in shoes so they are unwearable. Hundreds of Wal-Mart tagged items with holes made in them have been found dumped: “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.”
Why one would not argue that these companies do not have the right to do as they please with their unused merchandise, it is very disturbing that major corporations like Walmart and H&M, who are very aware of the degree of poverty and want facing a lot of American would resort to what is close to heartless behavior. They have seen their profits grow because people are flocking to their stores in search of bargains. What is wrong in putting these extra items upo for sale or donating them to needy people in this country or in the developing countries?
Of course, now that these disturbing acts of total lack of compassion have been exposed, we expect the usual cop out from the executives of these companies: “We will do everything in our power to make sure this does not happen again”. Yeah right. But it is worth mentioning though that while these tow have been exposed, they are by no means the only ones involved in this so-called “Destroy and Discard” policy. It is reported that Sam Goody had the same practice years ago where all clothes and toys were destroyed and discarded, and the managers were not allowed to take it upon themselves to donate the items on their own; Head Start in Boston, MA usually received boxes and bags of donated clothing from Macy’s & Jordan Marsh including beautiful little coats & hats that had big holes and slashes in them to prevent them from being resold; Borders, the book store were recently outed by their own employees as planning to trash tens of thousands of unsold books after 200 Waldenbooks locations shut down by the end of January.
More than just crucifying these companies, we should also look at why they are taking such drastic measures. Could it because there is just too much paperwork involved for tax purposes (as lame as that may sound)? Are there laws against donating unsold merchandise after a tax write-off? Heck, is there a law in the U.S. that mandates these companies to “destroy and discard”? There are always two sides to a story.
We’ll watch how this one shakes out.