Amazon destroys millions of unsold product

The great Amazon dump - 12th July 2021

The online company Amazon destroys millions of perfectly good products each year. These are products that are new, unsold and unused.

An ITV News video report in the UK provided evidence of the company's surprisingly high levels of waste. A worker had secretly filmed inside Amazon's Dunfermline warehouse. The video recorded products packed into boxes marked “destroy”. There were new smart TVs, laptops, drones, hairdryers, top of the range headphones, computer drives, books, thousands of sealed face masks.

Amazon bins the unsold or returned products. They are then sent to recycling centres or rubbish dumps. It doesn't donate them to charitable organizations or the poor.

A former employee of Amazon, who asked to remain nameless, informed reporters that each week the aim was to destroy 130,000 products. He was shocked that the company didn't care what the items were. They included Dyson fans, Hoovers, MacBooks and iPads. He said they also dumped 20,000 Covid face masks.

Amazon's business model might be the source of the problem. Many sellers choose to store their products in Amazon’s warehouses. However, the longer the goods remain unsold, the more it costs the sellers. So it is more economical to dispose of the goods.

International environmental organisation Greenpeace has commented on the discovery. Sam Chetan-Welsh, a political campaigner and member expressed that it's “shocking to see a multi-billion pound company getting rid of stock in this way.”

He adds that if Amazon continues with this business model, things will worsen. Chetan-Welsh says the government must take action immediately. He wants company policies such as these to be illegal.