Just days after sending out a press release about its eco-friendly spring fashion line, fashion retail company H&M’s angered a lot of environmentalists — by destroying new, unsold clothes so no one can wear them.
“It is winter. A third of the city is poor. And unworn clothing is being destroyed nightly.” That’s how Jim Dwyer of the New York Times describes the clothing massacre in his expose. Jim reveals that H&M’s slashing up and punching big holes into clothes that haven’t sold, then dumping them in to garbage bins — right around the corner from New York Cares, a group that conducts an annual coat drive and is eager for clothing donations.
H&M isn’t the only company that’s destroying perfectly good clothes. The New York Times also caught Wal-Mart in this un-eco practice, though perhaps due to its already tarnished, oft-boycotted business practices, environmentalists seem to find Wal-Mart’s actions less shocking.
Thanks to the uproar, H&M quickly announced it will stop destroying clothes, instead donating them to charity. Will that promise get you shopping H&M’s spring line — made with organic cotton and linen, recycled polyester, and tencel — for next season?
Photo by Ambrosiana Pictures
I think it’s important to remember that as far as we know this was the one store on 34th street, not company-wide policy.
Comment by penny — January 8, 2010 @ 11:13 am
True, but as someone who has worked in retail before it may just be safe to assume that it is company-wide policy to toss usable stuff. In high school I had a job at Bath & Body Works and they throw a lot of product away and even rejected my offer to bring it down to a homeless or domestic violence shelter. Of course they didn’t let any employees just walk with it either. A friend who used to work at Victoria’s Secret told me that they did the same. Frankly, I’m upset, but not shocked that H&M does this. I do have an organic T-shirt from there though, and am on the fence on whether or not I will continue shopping there from now on.
Comment by Katrina — January 8, 2010 @ 7:58 pm
Whats going there? Why richer are hating the poorest? Rich people almost never wish give away anything to poorest.
Comment by DrKeithCurrie — January 9, 2010 @ 8:00 am
This practice is simply bad business. There are so many deserving charities and people where the clothes (or any other consumerable for that matter) should be donated rather than trash as pure waste. Pure ignorance IMHO!
Comment by Trudee — January 9, 2010 @ 1:58 pm
Destroying “un-sellable” clothes and products (whether they are defective, returned, or have just been on the sale rack for too long, etc.) is common practice in retail. H&M and Walmart are most certainly not the only offenders in NYC, nor is NYC the only place this happens. I worked retail there during college, as did many of my friends. Nightly or weekly (depending on the chain and amounts) these clothes are slashed, painted, punched or otherwise destroyed and disposed of.
This is supposed to protect the store from people dumpster diving or receiving donations and then returning to the store the next day and demanding a refund or store credit for the item they “bought” but “lost the receipt for”. If they were unable to do that, or if the items were of good enough quality, these items were allegedly sold on the street instead. Destroying bad merchandise also protects the brand and store profits, ensuring people cannot get the goods at a discounted price and/or the brand/store does not drop in real or perceived value (“Oh, bulldog jeans? I heard you can get those at Goodwill now, why would you wear those?”).
In New York there seems to be a higher concern about this than in most other areas of the country (possibly because of how trash is handled – it is thrown out right on the curb in most areas, or possibly because of other factors, such as high tourist, dumpster diving and street merchant populations). However, I have also heard of it happening in retail stores in Los Angeles, Detroit, and San Francisco.
Offenders which I am aware of included Virgin Megastore, Abercrombie & Fitch, Urban Outfitters and Kmart.
The above account of Bath & Body Works and Victoria’s Secret rings very true to policies I have encountered, although the only place it makes real sense is Bath & Body Works IF they were disposing of makeup and products that was bad or near expiration. Even donating that makes them liable for anyone who used bad product and suffered because of it (broke out in a rash because of expired lotion, etc).
Comment by Cassandra — January 10, 2010 @ 9:39 am
This is not a one shot deal nor is it a one company deal, here in Canada our chin store Zellers does it all the time chain wide, Wal-Mart does it chain wide so what makes you believe this is a one store deal? This is the kind of selfish and wasteful behaviour the retail industry has been practising for years. This is quite a different issue than receiving expired make up or body care products this is completely usable clothing and if a chain is afraid that someone will try to return an item then punch a hole in the label or paint the label a specific colour that can’t be washed out and if someone returns them there is a clear indicator of donation merch vs. purchased merch. There are ways to do things to protect both consumer and company but these big business don’t want to see that.
Comment by Miranda — January 14, 2010 @ 6:04 am
Katrina — Unfortunately, I’ve got some bad news for you — that H&M T-shirt you got may not actually be organic :(
Cassandra — You make a good point: “Destroying bad merchandise also protects the brand and store profits, ensuring people cannot get the goods at a discounted price and/or the brand/store does not drop in real or perceived value.” This does, however, make me angry at the fact that basically, it’s cheaper for companies to protect their brand by destroying clothing than by creating less clothing!
What the clothes-destroying practice really shows is that the companies are not made to pay the true cost (environmentally and labor-wise) of creating these cheap clothes, and thus are economically incentivized to overproduce and destroy than simply produce less.
For ex, if instead of the few token green pieces the company makes now, all of H&M’s cotton clothes had to be made out of organic cotton — purchased at today’s prevailing prices for organic cotton — I’m guessing there’d be a lot less excess stuff to worry about to begin with. Ditto if H&M had to pay the true cost of oil for transporting their cheap goods, etc.
Comment by Siel — January 28, 2010 @ 5:25 pm