Why do retailers destroy their goods?
France has banned food waste. It has become the first country in the world to do so. In the first week of February, the Parliament here decided to ban wasting of food and other things. Germany’s environment minister Svenya Schultes is also against the destruction of new goods. In order to stop this, in the coming days, preparations are also being made to make laws in Germany. Germany and France’s environment ministry has ordered action against these companies after reports in the media of incineration of goods for use in big fashion companies like HNM and Barbari in their warehouse. READ MORE
Online retail platforms like Amazon, Zalando and Auto sell the goods of many companies in one place. It is necessary to bring rules to rein in such a website. In the fashion race, this economic model is making more and more stuff which is not useful for anyone. Alma Dufour of France campaigns against the waste of goods. “Instead of reselling it, it is destroyed. It is damaging the environment,” she says. At the same time, there are some countries which are constantly trying to deal with the waste of retail. The challenge before the people working for the environment is different, there is no law for big companies under which they tell how much material they destroy.
The government of any country does not have an accurate estimate of how much the countries involved in the European Union destroy every year, but the government of France and Germany has recently published an estimate. According to this estimate, in 2014, companies in France destroyed 63 million euros and in 2010 companies in Germany destroyed 700 million euros. Many studies on retail trade in France and the European Union only estimate the percentage of destruction of different types of goods, but the lack of public accounting makes them impossible to verify. Which creates confusion. READ MORE
On the waste of goods, the website of the Government of France presents the figure of 800 million euros and the Ministry of the Environment of 63 million euros. But according to environmentalists, the figure may be much more. According to German writer and founder of German social enterprises Inachura, Julianna Cronon, “The figures the German government has given to waste 700 million euros is not enough but no one else has any other figures.”
Large online retailers have come under scrutiny because customers are giving preference to online shopping. The package is sent back to customers who do not want the goods. The EHI Retail Institute surveyed companies in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In which it was found that 70 per cent of the returned goods are sold as new goods but the remaining 30 per cent of the goods are not told about what happens.
A survey of donating institutions in the UK found that the waste of the package is not just by returning the package to the customer. According to the BCG report, two to three per cent of the products that exit the supply chains in Germany are mainly defective packaging, mislabeling, overproduction, and the launch of new goods in place of old products. At the same time, a study of the University of Bamberg in 2019 found that 3.9 per cent of the returned packages were destroyed.
The companies do not even give details of how much material is wasted. According to Zalando and auto companies, only one per cent of the returned goods are destroyed. At the same time, a spokeswoman for the German company of Germany did not give the percentage of the destroyed goods, but she says, “When there is no option left, then the returned goods are sent for recycling or in the dustbin.” In France too, Amazon said in 2019 that only a small part of the goods that are not sold are destroyed.
The British fashion company Burbury destroyed 38 million euros bags and perfumes in 2018, following which it faced public criticism. After this, the company stopped destroying the goods. The Swedish fashion company HNM was also accused in 2017. When the company burned clothes at the city’s power plant. The company argued that these clothes were not fit to be used again. “We do not have an option to destroy wearable and safe products,” says the company’s Germany spokesperson. The company has not told how much material has been destroyed so far.
The fashion industry, which is fast becoming online, has to face criticism for setting a lot of good things on fire. People working on the environment say that high-end labels destroy their goods to protect them from the black market. Environmentalists say that there are some areas that need to be dealt with. Consumers who buy excessively and retailers who destroy used commodities. Both of these are harming the environment. They can be improved. Germany’s social organization Inachura gets retail products from companies like Amazon. This institution donates these goods to the needy but the government is also levying a heavy tax on such donations. Which means that destroying goods for companies is cheaper than donating. Simplifying the process of the donation will have social benefits but it will not help much in reducing the carbon footprint of the industries. “You can take the charity route to get rid of the stuff, but it won’t solve the problem of overproduction,” says Greenpeace activist Voila Volgmuth in Germany.
Originally published at https://www.mubahisa.in.