Friday, January 8, 2010

Large Retailers Trash Unsold Clothes



This week the New York Times reported a disheartening story about H & M and Walmart, two of the largest retail chains.  They are throwing out and destroying unsold goods instead of taking them to sample sales or donating to charity.  They are destroying garments by slashing and putting holes in them to the point that they are unwearable.

The shocking 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’s jackets, slashed across the body and the arms. The puffy fiber fill was coming out in big white cotton balls.”



*Cynthia Magnus holds up a destroyed garment that she found in the garbage.

This discovery is very unsettling, especially in these recessive times.  For the full story click here






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