Let’s pretend you’re a big clothing retail chain who’s a bit profit minded and unscrupulous because you’re a corporation and you answer to share holders. Naturally, you wouldn’t want the poor to be seen in your clothes. It sends the wrong message if your sportswear can be bought by anyone.
You definitely don’t want your product ending up in the hands of those in poverty or, heaven forbid, people in the grip of a natural disaster, like say an earthquake in Haiti. Lord knows what would happen to your market share if your clothes turned up in an Associated Press picture on a starving person and that picture was distributed widely. What’s a corporation to do? How can they keep their clothes from being seen as inexpensive, cheap, and accessible to everyone?
If your Wal-Mart and H & M the answer seems to be: damage your unsold merchandise so it’s worthless and then dump it to create more landfill waste. According to an article that appeared recently in the New York Times this is exactly what the two chains have been doing in one New York neighborhood.
Graduate student Cynthia Magnus recently discovered almost 20 bags of damaged H & M and Wal-Mart merchandise near Herald Square. When confronted by the waste a Wal-Mart spokeswoman claimed the store usually donates its unsold clothes to charity and promised to investigate why the items were destroyed and thrown in the alley.
Wal-Mart’s attempt to shift blame onto individual stores brought back fond memories of my brief stint working in a large chain apparel store in high school. One lesson I carried with me from that experience is that employees at these establishments have zero free will. All protocol, rules and orders come from on high. I doubt a group of rouge grunts decided to destroy hundreds of garments and throw them in the alley against the company’s recommendation.
Uncovering the destroyed clothes raises further questions about both H & M and Wal-Mart’s recent well-publicized sustainability campaigns. Furthermore, no one really knows how many other large retail chains have been carrying out similar disposal practices. Millions of pounds of virtually new clothes could be ending up in landfills each year.
One hopes that H & M and Wal-Mart will find a way to get unused merchandise to Haiti – perhaps working with the Red Cross. Also, any clothing company searching for a way to dispose of misprints, damaged goods and unsold items should check this article on ways to recycle clothes.
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