Many Amazon Returns Are Just Destroyed or Sent to Landfills

[dora_da_destroyer]

not sure what sweeping conclusions you can make from an undercover tour of one site and return experiment on 12 items, but yes, there is a lot of waste in commerce point blank, not just Amazon. there should be more upcycling and donation, but many of those efforts cost more than dumping it, not sure if that's on retailers to try to fix or the downmarket parts of the ecosystem.

 

[New Jeruzalem Journalist]

They resell some of the stuff on the warehouse deals sections.It crazy tho at one point we threw anything away under $100...I use to throw away thousands of dollars of shyt everyday.I would throw away toys cause the box was damaged,college books,baby clothes..i always said why not give it to employees.

Yeah, I'm not understanding where there is a universal benefit for destroying vs. donating. Even if it's used as an incentive to increase employee productivity, attendance, workplace accident reduction, etc. I understand depending on location and product, destroying may be the more cost effective option, but that can't be the case for every item that gets tossed out.

Also, wouldn't it be cheaper for a company to just expand their "no returns" inventory vs eating the cost of the return in addition to a refund?

 

[Deflatedhoopdreams]

not sure what sweeping conclusions you can make from an undercover tour of one site and return experiment on 12 items, but yes, there is a lot of waste in commerce point blank, not just Amazon. there should be more upcycling and donation, but many of those efforts cost more than dumping it, not sure if that's on retailers to try to fix or the downmarket parts of the ecosystem.

 

[Baka's Weird Case]

When I worked at the warehouse they had an entire area full of returned items marked to be destroyed, alot of it in working order. Apparently they have contracts with some sellers to not resell used products so they destroy it.

were you able to go in and take what you want?

 

[5n0man]

were you able to go in and take what you want?

Nope

They made pallets of used items to be sold or donated, all the items were random and you had to take the whole pallet.


Some items Amazon would sell for themselves as a warehouse deal.