Major Clothing Retailer Accused of Trashing Apparel
Clothing retailer H&M has been accused of tossing out its damaged and unsold clothes instead of repairing or donating them.
First reported by The New York Times on Wednesday, graduate student Cynthia Magnus tells the paper that she often sees piles of discarded clothing in trash bags behind the Herald Square location in New York City.
“It is winter. A third of the city is poor. And unworn clothing is being destroyed nightly,”Jim Dwyer writes for The Times. Magnus says most of the garments are usually cut up and full of holes, a move that New York magazine’s fashion blog says prevents people from wearing or reselling the clothing.
But even as we’ve proven in the past, almost any damaged (and certainly just unsold) item of clothing – from jeans to T-shirts – can be reused or recycled.
So why throw away clothing that could be used in other spaces?
We contacted H&M in Scottsdale and asked the very same question, to which they replied, “We adhere to the corporate policy for proper disposal for our clothing.”
What exactly is that policy? The sales associate said it was not available online but may be tracked down through H&M’s corporate offices. Like The Times, we tried to call H&M’s public relations rep but were unable to make contact.
A touter of sustainable practices, H&M has been praised for its organic clothing collection that utilizes recycled materials. The company’s policy states that it offers affordable, fashionable clothing that is manufactured in a way that is “environmentally and socially sustainable.”
UPDATE:
Spokesperson for H&M Nicole Christie has released a statement saying it is the retailer’s policy to donate unworn clothing to charities.
“It will not happen again,” Christie said. “We are committed 100 percent to make sure this practice is not happening anywhere else, as it is not our standard practice.”
As of June 17th 2011 we have upgraded our comment system to use Facebook comments.
The below comments are closed and are listed for historical purposes.
Victoria
posted on January 7th, 2010 at 10:26 am
Corporate policies are made by people that have no contact or knowledge of the day to day processes of the retailers for which they design regulations. It would be in the best interest of all parties for the clothing to be donated. Companies pay for disposal cost whereas donations are tax deductable, what profitable company would deny an opportunity to cut overhead costs? Even if they are not doing it for the social benefit, the money saving asect would be worth the move its nothing but a win to donate. They definitely made a wrong judgememt here. Way to add to the landfill H&M and get the attention of those who try to limit the amount of waste that is destined to land there.
Tammy
posted on January 7th, 2010 at 7:19 pm
What a waste to throw out good clothing when their are so many out there in need. I am glad to see the updated post stating they will not let this happen again. Let’s pray they stay true to there word!
WTF
posted on January 8th, 2010 at 7:22 am
Trashing perfectly good items has been common place among big box stores for a long time. I know people who work or have worked at Walmart and told me they routinely threw perfectly good items away under instruction from their manager, and that their thinking is that they would rather throw such items away so people have to pay regular price for these items instead of getting them for cheap or free.
When I worked for two major home Improvement chains rhyming with Gnome Depot and Powe’s, they had me do the exact same thing for the exact same reason. You can look in their dumpsters at any time and find thousands of dollars worth of perfectly good merchandise. Those dumpsters are a favorite stop on the routes of of waste disposal employees because they retrieve the dumpsters and then sort threw them when they take them back to the dump.
pinkiepie
posted on January 13th, 2010 at 2:35 pm
Family Dollar does this as well. It is a pretty common practive among retailers Giants or not
Denise
posted on January 13th, 2010 at 5:11 pm
It would be better off donated to thrift shops for organizations to raise funds for their programs or clothes closets that lend out clothing for job interviews.
mcdonatl
posted on January 15th, 2010 at 10:41 am
I am sorry to be the one to break it to all of you, but businesses are in the business of making money. If they give too much stuff away, no one will want to buy it. Who would be dumb enough to buy something that they can get for free. Or who would want to pay for something that everyone else gets for free. Businesses make money to employ people who in turn buy their stuff. If you mess with that too much you break the whole system.
Major Clothing Retailer Accused of Trashing Apparel – Earth911.com | All Topics Blog
posted on January 29th, 2010 at 8:40 pm
[...] Bessed.com wrote an interesting post today on  Here’s a quick excerpt  First reported by The New York Times on Wednesday, graduate student Cynthia Magnus tells the paper that she often sees piles of discarded clothing in trash bags behind the Herald Square location in New York City. … [...]
Someone out here
posted on April 9th, 2010 at 8:43 pm
H&M and Walmart are not the only well-known retailers throwing clothes out. They were just caught in the public eye. Having worked a few stores myself at the mall, they all throw out “damaged” clothing. Some missing a button, others ripped… Nothing that couldn’t be fixed or given to the needy.
As for businesses trying to make money, um, hello. They already have money, enough to have stores across the US. They can afford to even give to the poor or other countries without the public knowing if they have a fear of losing money. What a garbage comment. You can tell how well you care about another wells being.
christine
posted on February 16th, 2011 at 9:03 am
many retailers destroy perfectly wearable clothing before throwing them away, so no one can wear them…
It’s a well known procedure in big stores and it’s always been practiced… and the worst thing about it it’s the fact that people used to take it as something normal … This problem should have been spotted out before being “eco” became popular, because beside the fact that it’s bad for environment this sort of actions are pathetic and unethical… Destroying perfectly new clothing what you won’t sell anyway is just so mean !!!!
Claudia
posted on February 21st, 2011 at 12:38 am
I had a friend (deceased now) who worked at a landfill as a plumber. He would put in the pipes to vent the gas that extruded from the decaying trash. He told us that he witnessed huge truckloads of things, i.e., sneakers for one (co. name rhymes with Shebok) that would get dumped. Not only dumped, but a company representative would come with them to make certain that NOONE got the shoes; the rep made sure the landfill crew bulldozed hundreds of pounds of dirt on top of them.
(Another thing he told us about, for all those people who like to buy their hilltop mansions in SoCal, he told us that when he would work there in the late PMs, the owners of the dump would allow certain company’s trying to get rid of toxic waste by dumping it there. The owners kept covering “waste,” legal or otherwise, building the huge dump mountains that were eventually “filled.” They would then cover them with grass and sell them to construction companies that would build the big hilltop California MacMansions on top of them and sell them for millions. Every adult female member in our family [yes, we lived less than a block from it] came down with auto-immune diseases (& our kids ALL turned out ADD–each new child was progressively worse), but the doctors kept insisting that it had nothing to do with it.] We moved away, even though it was a VERY affluent area, and I will always be VERY careful where I buy in the future.)