A Clothing Clearance Where More Than Just the Prices Have Been Slashed
 

A Clothing Clearance Where More Than Just the Prices Have Been Slashed

New York Times

In the bitter cold on Monday night, a man and woman picked apart a pyramid of clear trash bags, the discards of the HM clothing store that reigns in blazing plate-glass glory on 34th Street, just east of Sixth Avenue in Manhattan.

At the back entrance on 35th Street, awaiting trash haulers, were bags of garments that appear to have never been worn. And to make sure that they never would be worn or sold, someone had slashed most of them with box cutters or razors, a familiar sight outside H & M’s back door. The man and woman were there to salvage what had not been destroyed.

He worked quickly, never uttering a word. A bag was opened and eyed, and if it held something of promise, was tossed at the feet of the woman. She said her name was Pepa.

Were the clothes usually cut up before they were thrown out?

“A veces,” she said in Spanish. Sometimes.

She packed up a few items that had escaped the blade — a bright green T-shirt that said “Summer of Surf,” and a dark-blue hoodie in size 12, with a Divided label. The rest was returned to the pyramid.

It is winter. A third of the city is poor. And unworn clothing is being destroyed nightly.

A few doors down on 35th Street, hundreds of garments tagged for sale in Wal-Mart — hoodies and T-shirts and pants — were discovered in trash bags the week before Christmas, apparently dumped by a contractor for Wal-Mart that has space on the block.

Each piece of clothing had holes punched through it by a machine.

They were found by Cynthia Magnus, who attends classes at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York on Fifth Avenue and noticed the piles of discarded clothing as she walked to the subway station in Herald Square. She was aghast at the waste, and dragged some of the bags home to Brooklyn, hoping that someone would be willing to take on the job of patching the clothes and making them wearable.

A Wal-Mart spokeswoman, Melissa Hill, said the company normally donates all its unworn goods to charities, and would have to investigate why the items found on 35th Street were discarded.

During her walks down 35th Street, Ms. Magnus said, it is more common to find destroyed clothing in the H & M trash. On Dec. 7, during an early cold snap, she said, she saw about 20 bags filled with H & M clothing that had been cut up.

“Gloves with the fingers cut off,” Ms. Magnus said, reciting the inventory of ruined items. “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 jackets were tagged $59, $79 and $129.

This week, a manager in the H & M store on 34th Street said inquiries about its disposal practices had to be made to its United States headquarters. However, various officials did not respond to 10 inquiries made Tuesday by phone and e-mail.

Directly around the corner from H & M is a big collection point for New York Cares, which conducts an annual coat drive.

“We’d be glad to take unworn coats, and companies often send them to us,” said Colleen Farrell, a spokeswoman for New York Cares.

More than coats were tossed out. “The H & M thing was just ridiculous, not only clothing, but bags and bags of sturdy plastic hangers,” Ms. Magnus said. “I took a dozen of them. A girl can never have enough hangers.”

H & M, which is based in Sweden, has an executive in charge of corporate responsibility who leads the company’s sustainability efforts. On its Web site, H&M reports that to save paper, it has shrunk its shipping labels.

“How about all the solid waste generated by throwing away usable garments and plastic hangers?” Ms. Magnus asked in a letter to the executive, Ingrid Schullstrom. She volunteered to help H & M connect with a charity or agency in New York that could put the unsold items to better use than simply tossing them in the trash. So far, she said, she has gotten no response.

On Monday night, Pepa’s shopping bag held a few items. She pointed to her gray sweatpants. “From here,” she said.

How about coats?

“Maybe tomorrow,” she said.

It's reasons like this that people hate 'big business'. There is no excuses for companies being so selfish!! Also, not to defend WalMart or anything, but it is true that at least some stores donate the clothing to places like Goodwill. My mom works at WalMart and she is in charge at her store of writing off the unsold clearance clothing. The only thing they cut is the size tag in half.

H&M has finally responded officially via Facebook:

To me it sounds like someone at HQ is spinning for their lives. I seriously doubt this is just one rogue store manager. In fact, many other store chains employ this practice as well- Anthropologie being one of the most blogged offenders. I think this is ultimately globalization run amock- that foreign-made goods are so cheap to produce that they are essentially disposable or not worth salvaging and/or re-purposing. In a city like New York, where space and resources are expensive, it was probably just an issue of economics- it was probably cheaper to just run everything through a shredder rather than pack, store and ship everything to charity.

I love Wal-mart. I bought my TV there. Got a great deal, too!

Yeah, right. :distress:

I'm sure that's the case. It doesn't make it any better though.

Oh, I know. But if you're in the business of selling trendy dresses for $19.99, you're not exactly dealing with huge margins, so any bit of inefficiency hurts the bottom line tremendously. Plus I think there might be a tax situation involved as well- maybe a business accountant could weigh in on this.

As a society (American), I think we have to be more aware of where/how our clothes are made. And if we can afford to buy American products, and if we can afford to boycott these kinds of fast/trendy/cheap establishments, we should. Dov Charney is a sleazebucket, but American Apparel carries affordable USA-made clothing for only a smidge more than H&M. I was actually surprised to discover that my last few clothing purchases were made in the USA, which I didn't know at the time I got them. Granted, they were kind of expensive, and from obscure/hip higher-end brands, but it definitely made me feel better than if I had dropped that kind of cash on something made in China.

Wal-Mart and H&M could at least take a cue from Target and donate their clothes to Goodwill. You can get Target surplus at most Goodwill stores now - brand new stuff, uber-cheap. From coats to pants to shoes and everything in between. They even donate toys and games and other stuff.

I used to work for a large retail store similar to Wal-Mart called Meijer, and was appalled at the waste of food there. Perfectly good canned items, fresh fruit, fresh veggies, dry goods like pastas & rice, meat, bakery stuff, etc - always getting dumped in the trash compactor instead of going to a shelter or something. It didn't occur to me to check what they did with the clothing and other non-food items, though.

I also worked at Tim Horton's (for one day, haha) a few years back, and it was the same thing, but worse - as you may or may not know, Tim Horton's prides itself on "freshness," so once the coffee has been in the pot for more than a couple of hours, it's policy to throw it out. Same with the bagels, donuts, donut holes, and other pastries. I was like, "Are you kidding me? It's been on the shelf for 4 hours, so you're going to throw it out?" Hundreds of bagels & muffins, gone. It's sad and wasteful and silly to me.

Unless you go into the Tim Horton's near me, in which case you'd think you asked them to open up a vein when you order decaf.

Haha. The one I was at, they were throwing stuff away left & right. Of course, this was a few years ago. They may leave the donuts on the shelf for a week now. Who knows.

+1 under "reasons I'm glad I no longer eat donuts" :laugh: