Cynthia Magnus holds up unworn, destroyed clothing she found in the garbage. Photo by Suzanne DeChillo/New York Times
This week the New York Times reported a disheartening story about two of the largest retail chains. You see, instead of taking unsold items to sample sales or donating them to people in need, H&M and Wal-Mart have been throwing them out in giant trash bags. And in the case that someone may stumble on these bags and try to keep or re-sell the items, these companies have gone ahead and slashed up garments, cut off the sleeves of coats, and sliced holes in shoes so they are unwearable.
This unsettling 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.”
The New York Times points out that one-third of the city’s population is poor, which makes this behavior not only wasteful and sad, but downright irresponsible. Wal-Mart spokeswoman, Melissa Hill, acted surprised that these items were found, claiming they typically donate all unworn merchandise to charity. When reporters went around the corner from H&M to a collections drop-off for charity organization New York Cares, spokesperson Colleen Farrell said, “We’d be glad to take unworn coats, and companies often send them to us.”
After several days of no response from H&M, the company made a statement today, promising to stop destroying the garments at the midtown Manhattan location. They said they will donate the items to charity. H&M spokeswoman Nicole Christie said, “It will not happen again,” and that the company would make sure none of the other locations would do so either. Hopefully that’s the final word. [NY Times][Huff Post]
by Joanna Douglas, Shine Staff, on Thu Jan 7, 2010 8:31am PST
Source: Shine
“H&M spokeswoman Nicole Christie said, “It will not happen again,””
I sincerely hope not. I absolutely understand businesses not wanting any old opportunist selling on their goods for an enormous mark-up but it’s easy enough to make sure that the clothing gets to people who desperately need it.
I’ve seen speculation that perhaps H&M didn’t want their brand associated with homeless people. Whether or not that’s true, I don’t know but if it is, the argument is not only offensive, it doesn’t hold any water either. It’s unfortunately true that most people won’t even give a homeless person the time of day, so how likely is it that they’re going to notice what brand of clothes they’re wearing? Even if they did, it wouldn’t stop anyone shopping at H&M. The company is in no danger of going under, the brand would not be tarnished, no retail jobs are in the firing line. I can see no good reason for why those clothes should be destroyed instead of donated.