this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2024
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Individual Climate Action
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Discuss actions that we can directly take as individuals to reduce environmental harm.
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Did you read ¶6 of the linked page? E.g.
“Amazon is destroying millions of items of unsold stock every year, products that are often new and unused, ITV News can reveal. (That article covers the UK, but an insider tells me it's happening in the US too)”
Amazon overstocks their warehouse and then has to prioritize the space for the most profitable stock. They destroy everything that does not make the cut. That strikes me as very inefficient. I think any perceived efficiency draws from the sort of work environment that causes employees to pee in jars. That’s not really the kind of efficiency that benefits the environment.
That's fairly normal in retail, both online and bricks-and-mortar. That doesn't make it better, but it's perhaps not an outstanding black mark against Amazon alone.
I suppose it would be interesting to know what extent the various retailers go to in order to assure destruction of the stock. Amazon does not tolerate stuff being tossed in the dumpster, and then someone popping by the dumpster after their shift ends -- in fear that they would sell the stuff on eBay (their competitor). So the excess stock area is secured with only approved people getting access and Amazon somehow ensures that the select few who get access are likely to comply with the destruction. I wouldn’t be surprised if Amazon recorded the destruction on video. (and if they do, would be very nice if someone would leak that)
I've seen staff, from at least one retailer, in the middle if summer, putting working fans in the dumpster and then beating them with hammers until destroyed. They needed more shelf space for AC units. The staff weren't happy doing it, but weren't given much choice about it.
Ultimately, what should retailers do with overstock? You'd hope they could sell it off cheap or donate it to a suitable charity, and I'm sure some percentage is, but it works against them as customers buy the discounted items rather than the higher profit ones. The retailers don't want to destroy stock as it's lost profit, but it's the most economical path for them to take in that situation. I suspect it'll take a change in regulations to change that arithmetic.
Some companies in the US offer mail-in rebates, and sometimes the rebates go as far as making the product gratis. So if they overproduced product X, they will price it at $50 but then offer a rebate for $50. Consumers have to go through some hoops to get the reimbursement (fill out a form, copy the receipt, cut out a UPC code from the package, and mail it before an aggressive deadline). This obviously boosts sales and gets stuff out of stock quick. Some customers are lazy or incompetent, so they are enticed by the rebate, they buy, but then fail to follow all the rules or fail to meet the rigid schedule. So the seller gets some revenue from consumer failures, as opposed to zero revenue by trashing. They also outsource the rebate effort to a rebate company, and they are often a bit nefarious and (IMO) pretend to lose mail. The amount of mail that gets lost with those mail-in rebates statistically disproportionate to other mail. In any case, that’s an approach that apparently gets shareholder approval. Both manufacturers and big merchants do that. They also have a big window of time to decide when to mail out the refunds. They can choose which fiscal quarter they want to take that hit in for tax purposes.
Amazon is surely quite calculated in what the do, so it’s unclear to me why they don’t use MIRs to dump stuff. As consumers, we can influence that calculation by boycotting. So us doing our job can control this.
I’m not generally a fan of overly micro-controlled interventionalism but I would support a hard and fast ban on destruction and disposal of non-defective goods. They should be forced to contact the city waste management and say “we have 1000 smartphones new in box to dump”, and the city should manage it in a way that the phones do not get wasted. If Amazon doesn’t like their own products competing against them, they will reorganize their stock situation to be more optimal for profits in a non-destructive way, which might mean not overstocking in the first place.
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