Destroying unsold goods by Walmart and H&M

[jimgeo]

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

[Durango Dude]

This doesn't compare one bit to the amount of food that is wasted at our hotel's and marriage's, I feel being in India, wasting food is a crime and I don't miss an opportunity to tell my kid's that, when they do the same. You don't have to quote NY times when there are soo many example's around our own corner.

[jimgeo]

Yes DD a lot of food is being wasted everywhere. Here in Australia and in Europe and U.S, the bakeries, restaurants and supermarkets will destroy all the leftover fresh food at the closing time. I know some students from rich Indian families struggling here to earn the money for their  livelihood because of lack of part time jobs and racism. Some of such students have pleaded  the restaurants and bakeries to keep the leftover food for them.

 

There are certain practical difficulties in serving these food to the needy ones as the food safety rules are very strict here. The people who need the food may be far away so that it cannot be delivered to them within the expiry period. So serving these food within the specific shelf life period is really difficult most of the times.

 

But in the case of clothes, there are lot of charitable agencies that collect the clothes from every home and textile shops on a weekly basis. There are a lot of  cloth banks ( neat and secure bins for depositing unwanted clothes) in most of the public places like parking grounds of shopping malls, fuel stations etc. So there are so many ways for helping the poor people with our unwanted clothes. In such a situation, destroying unsold and unworn clothes is really a crime that is done deliberately.

 

When I was in Europe, once  a collecting volunteer had told me that these clothes are to be supplied in Africa, some war stricken countries and also to our India. We must have an empathetic approach to our fellow citizens who are less fortunate than us.

 

 

[diablo37989]

Breadtalk here in India (Mumbai anyway) destroys perfectly good food at the end of every day rather than giving it away to charity. I know because I asked. Staff don't know why, but whatever the reason is, it's not good enough. Across the street from Hyperciti Mall in Malad there are children with barely enough to eat.

[dtandon]

I've personally spoken to a couple of restaurant owners here in Bangalore about putting leftover food to better use at the end of the day.

The problem is that of liability in case someone gets food poisoning from eating the leftover food. They are all wary of being dragged into a controversy if something goes wrong and people take sick.

Anyone have a practical solution to that ?

[Virgil]

There are a lot of cloth banks ( neat and secure bins for depositing unwanted clothes) in most of the public places like parking grounds of shopping malls, fuel stations etc. So there are so many ways for helping the poor people with our unwanted clothes. In such a situation, destroying unsold and unworn clothes is really a crime that is done deliberately.

[sgiitk]

Why talk about marriages and the like. Over 30% of foodgrain is destroyed or rendered unfit for human consumption due to poor storage. I shudder to think what the percentage will be for perishables.