If I can’t use it I’m going to make sure you can’t either

   An interesting situation played out in the New York Times was brought to my attention by a friend this week. On January 5th it was reported that clothing dumped by both H&M and Wal-mart in Manhattan had been deliberately damaged either by being slashed or punched with holes before being discarded to prevent it being used. The article decried the waste and suggested that these clothes could more usefully have been given to charities working with the poor and homeless.

   The sheer waste of this situation is disturbing and in freezing cold winter temperatures it does seem inhuman to make clothing unusable. Let’s take a moment to look at this problem from the point of view of the businesses. They would probably say that this has to be done for two reasons:

• Their returns policy means that they cannot leave clothing undamaged for fear it may be returned and exchanged by people who had not made a purchase (more on this below)
• They are worried about the brand perception – if someone has bought a jacket for say $50 and then see the same jacket the next day being worn by someone begging on the street they may not be thrilled, and may be far less likely to buy from that store again.

So what could they do?

• Ideally forecast more accurately so that they don’t get left with so much stuff. But I’m sure they are trying to do that anyway aren’t they?
• Ship the un-saleable clothing to a location where the brand is not sold and distribute it to poor people in that region. The downside of this is of course the resulting additional carbon footprint.
• Warehouse the clothing for a few seasons before distributing to charities but this creates additional cost.
• Find a way to mark clothing so it cannot be returned without making it unusable. For example one sees brand name clothing for sale on ebay with marked or cut labels to prevent returns. If distributed immediately to charities it still creates a brand damage potential so it doesn’t entirely solve the problem.

   An interesting follow-up was published the following day when H&M were reported as promising to ensure clothing was not destroyed and would be distributed to charity. A spokeswoman said that it was company policy to donate unsold clothes to charity and they would make sure all stores were complying. So was this simply the action of an aberrant store manager or are H&M routinely carrying out such practices? We’ll probably never be sure. (Wal-mart has yet to respond by the way). Before we are too quick to point fingers at them maybe we should look at our own wasteful practices. One of the comments below the second article was I thought apt :
“I know someone who opens a can of beans and after eating a little for dinner, throws the rest in the trash.”

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