H&M, Wal-Mart Destroy Unsold Clothing

UPDATE 1/7: H&M has promised to stop trashing unsold clothes. Wal-Mart...?

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Amid the recession and the cold winter months, Cynthia Magnus made a shocking discovery at the H&M in Manhattan's Herald Square. It wasn't a sale on the season's hottest trends--it was garbage bags upon garbage bags of unsold merchandise, most of it slashed with razors to ensure that no one would ever wear or sell it, the New York Times reports.

"Gloves with the fingers cut off," Ms. Magnus said, reciting the inventory of ruined items. "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 jackets were tagged $59, $79 and $129.

And right around the corner from this particular H&M is a popular collection point for New York Cares' coat drive. The organization's spokeswoman Colleen Farrell told the Times, "We'd be glad to take unworn coats, and companies often send them to us."

While H&M's destroy-and-discard policy is a missed opportunity in this time of need, the fast fashion retailer isn't the only one to practice these extreme measures. Magnus also found bags full of clothes priced with Wal-Mart tags, and each item had a hole punched through it.

Melissa Hill, a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart told the Times that the company typically donates its unsold pieces to charity and would investigate why those bags were discarded.

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Comments

[Spincast]

11:30 AM on 01/11/2010

Our whole economy is built on lies and an immoral profit ethic.

Manipulated Supply and Demand. The creation of Scarcity.
How do you maintain increasing prices on a supply to drive profits up? Simple, you control the availability of goods and CREATE the illusion of short supply, or scarcity. Corporations have to destroy excess supply to maintain the illusion of scarcity. Technology in automated manufacturing has gotten so efficient (also to increase profits) that its becoming harder to hide the abundance of manufactured goods.

We now have the technology to create an overwhelming abundance of food, clothing, shelter, clean water, etc. for every living human on the planet without the use of a monetary system at all. Jacques Fresco thought we did 40-years ago. March 13, 2010.

[L Lopez]

09:34 PM on 01/08/2010

My name is Lorenzo Lopez and I work in Walmart's communications department. I thought it was important to respond to the post regarding Walmart apparel found in NYC.

Recently, we were informed that several bags of samples were found on 35th Street in Manhattan, left by a supplier without our knowledge . This action was not in compliance with the Walmart apparel office's long-standing practice of donating all wearable samples to an extensive array of local charitable organizations, many of which have benefited tremendously. Merchandise deemed unwearable is sent to a recycling center. We are taking immediate action to reiterate, underscore and communicate this practice to all apparel suppliers to ensure that this doesn’t happen again.

As we work towards our goal of sending zero waste to landfills, we’re focused on three “Rs” – reduce, reuse and recycle. Our food donation program grew out of this focus and has provided more than 100 million pounds of food to U.S. food banks this year alone. Similarly, the samples donated from our apparel office and our apparel suppliers are benefiting the organizations and people who need them most.

[kareemachan]

05:28 PM on 01/09/2010

Words are cheap, dude.

[51tiggy]

09:48 AM on 01/12/2010

Benefits of doubts? Thank you for clarifying.

[GenuineNerd]

07:22 PM on 01/08/2010

It is a shame that retailers often destroy perfectly good merchandise rather than donate it to charities. In this economy, these donations can and will come in handy. I am guessing that companies such as Walmart and H&M are protecting their corporate @$$es by destroying perfectly good merchandise. In a way, I understand their point, because I have seen merchandise with Walmart, Target, Sears, JC Penney, and other labels being resold at flea markets. I also understand that sometimes, donations could be used to defraud the companies involved (for example, if clothing is donated to a women's or homeless shelter, the recipients would find out where the clothing came from, and would attempt to go to one of the retailer's stores to seek a refund or exchange, even if they have no receipt or tag. Some clothing manufacturers even go so far as to cut the brand tag off of the garment if the item is either resold at a discount or closeout store (such as Gabriel Brothers or Big Lots), or if it is donated to charity...it would typically be, for example a shirt or a pair of pants in which the brand label (Tommy Hilfiger, Polo Ralph Lauren, Abercrombie and Fitch, etc.) is cut off the garment, to make it look generic. Even Walmart, H&M, and others could just simply cut off the label, then donate the item, instead of destroying it.

[royle]

09:25 PM on 01/08/2010

I work for a national discount retail chain with over 7000 stores and it is the store policy to destroy products that are out of date, out of style, or dented, or that are replaced by newer product lines. I would be risking my job if I did not follow company policy and destroy these items, and many people have been terminated for giving them to charities or homeless people. The companies consider this theft and take it very seriously, there is absolutely no tolerance for violations of this policy and anyone in these corporations that act like it is news to them is trying to head off a public relations nightmare that is long overdue...

[ZenJu]

12:57 PM on 01/08/2010

Fellow sheeple, you do realise, don't you, that we can bring Wal-Mart and their ilk to their KNEES? We have the power of the dollar. If enough people are made aware of this criminal waste, then all we need to do is withdraw our business from the offending businesses--and let them know precisely why. We have POWER in numbers, if only we have vision and will. Those who let others control their destiny, deserve to be controlled by those who are smarter and more ruthless. Democracy only works as well as the people do, together.

[51tiggy]

09:49 AM on 01/12/2010

Withdrew my patronage long ago.

[Dmich116]

10:51 AM on 01/08/2010

This is definitely common among retailers. I used to work for Sam Goody years ago and they did the same thing. 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. I think it's great that this has been exposed now, but hopefully we can make a bigger fuss and push these corporations not only to allow individual stores to donate what they don't sell, but to make it a regular practice.

[nymainegrl]

09:02 AM on 01/08/2010

Unfortunately this ugly practice is not unique to these retailers. I used to work with Head Start in Boston, MA and we would receive 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 or whatever. We had a whole team of ladies from a nearby nursing home who would volunteer their time to try and repair or salvage the clothing, but some of it was too damaged. It just made me sick, as most Head Start families are lower income and could have really used the warm winter (undamaged) clothing. You have to give a real A+ for effort on the part of whichever executive made that retarded decision. And imagine being the workers tasked with that particular job - "here are some scissors, now get to work destroying these clothes!!"

[aajj]

08:07 AM on 01/08/2010

This has been happening at wal Mart for years I just hope someone doesn't loose their job at store level because of this that would be wrong. Wal Mart used to donate then people would take the donated clothes and try to return them for merchandise or money and that is why they stoped.

[Oso Wallman]

08:37 PM on 01/07/2010

The most disturbing thing about all these mondo companies is that they generate more "GDP" than many countries and we never get to see who makes these choices. They have social,economic and political clout that rivals many governments and affect the public in many of the same ways but beyond correction in their legalities. No accountability. They say the market forces will make adjustments but only capital/legal adjustments.
We are the market forces people, vote with your dollars in the only language that works in this situation.
Vote with your dollars and maybe we'll be treated as constituents to business not as a liability.

[Oso Wallman]

08:51 PM on 01/07/2010

It would be a welcome and wonderful thing if someone in the CEO world was mature and strong enough to envision a better relationship between sources and customers with out it being about numbers only. There doesn't seem to be a big picture person anymore.

[ARDalPorto]

08:25 AM on 01/08/2010

What was the $ value of the clothing that was disposed of/destroyed? How does this sum compare on a percentage basis to the total clothing sales for that store during the month of Dec? In other words, what was accuracy of their forecasted demand vs actual consumption.
If the % is large, then I would concede you have some valid argument. If the % is small, you have no legs to stand on. I posit that if it could be tabulated, we'd find that the percentage is a fraction of 1%. Smaller still if you calculate the store's cost basis not the retail sale price of the garments.
Now consider the aggregate food you leave on your plate at breakfast, lunch and dinner over the course of one month. Then do the same math as above, comparing that to all the food consumed in that period.. Should we start another thread here where we berate you and demand you lick your plate clean at the end of each meal?
You smug, bleeding hearts missed the lead buried in the NYT article, if a third of the people in NYC are considered "poor" - then, what the HELL are they doing living in the most expensive city in the US!! Talk about distorting market forces...

[dersankt]

01:01 AM on 01/23/2010

So are you rich New Yorkers prepared to clean your own damn toilets??

hush about why the poor lives there.

[wowisdabomb]

04:16 PM on 01/07/2010

Profits before People.

USA inc.

[Gover]

04:11 PM on 01/07/2010

I went into an H&M once and I discovered that they don't even have inseam measurements on their f***ing pants.

Well I'm 6'6". I don't have much use for capri pants. F***ing Euro-trash is what that is.

[Erik Ose]

02:48 PM on 01/07/2010

Contrast H&M’s quick reaction and public promise to donate unsold merchandise to that of Borders, who 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.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/erik-ose/why-wont-borders-donate-t_b_389060.html

After more than a month, Borders is still dragging its feet, trying to stonewall the issue until the store closing are over, and refusing to pledge to donate any of the books scheduled to be destroyed.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tell-BORDERS-DO-NOT-DUMPSTER-BOOKS-when-Waldenbooks-closes-DONATE/221726111069

If this shocks you, join the Facebook group and tell Borders to donate, not dumpster their unsold books!

[Elizabeth Werner]

12:16 PM on 01/07/2010

What the H&M spokesperson really means is: "We'll make sure you wont find the bags next time."

[madHenry]

02:05 PM on 01/07/2010

Unfortunately you have hit the target dead center.

[Jordan Nasser]

03:51 AM on 01/07/2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/07/nyregion/07clothes.html

[loria]

08:25 AM on 01/07/2010

That is good to hear. For all those who spoke about liability and law suits as the reason they didn't donate the clothing, it is clear that had nothing to do with it. Looks like one person made a difference here and made sure that the "policies of the store" were being followed.

[windsun33]

03:20 AM on 01/07/2010

It is pretty obvious that nobody here has ever actually worked in a thrift or Salvation Army type store.

The main SA warehouse where I used to work at in Phoenix got literally hundreds of tons of donated clothes every year. Clothes are the single most over-donated item, by both individuals and companies, in the universe. We used to sell hundreds of 200-pound bails of excess clothing donations to recycling companies each month.

[loria]

08:27 AM on 01/07/2010

I bet they would hate to receive new clothes.

There are other organizations outside Salvation Army and Goodwill. If they get excess clothing, I am sure the local thrift store for abused women would take the clothing.

[Oso Wallman]

09:05 AM on 01/07/2010

How much of this recycled was brand new clothing or the picked over-never chosen items. I'm certain it was mostly the latter. mostly not all. There are animal rescue thrift shops and lots of refugees across the globe that would make good use of these items. Even be shredded for insulation-but a land fill!

[MountPanic]

03:16 AM on 01/07/2010

Make no mistake; despite the plaintive protestations of right-wingnut commentators about the left trying to stir up a class war, the class war is ALREADY being waged, and it's a good chance that you're already losing.

Eat the rich.