British TV report ITV News Posted this Monday (21) reveals that Amazon It maintains a ‘cutting zone’ in the UK where thousands of unsold or returned items are shipped regularly by customers. The discarded items are varied. There are even reports of MacBooks and iPads among them.
There may be more than one place to dispose of the product, but this destruction area is located by ITV News It is located in Dunfermline, Scotland, where Amazon has a distribution center.
With hidden footage, the car recorded smart TVs, laptops, drones, hair dryers, headphones, cutlery, and books, among other things. All products were in boxes labeled ‘Damaged’.
The amount of discarded goods is negligible. A leaked internal document from the center in Dunfermline revealed that in one week in April, 124,000 items were marked as “destroyed.” In the same period, only 28,000 products were designated for donation.
A former Amazon employee, who asked not to be named, said: ITV News That when working in the warehouse, the unit aimed to destroy 130 thousand products per week. The same person has reported seeing MacBooks and iPads, Dyson and Hoover fans, vacuum cleaners and even COVID-19 masks going into destruction boxes.
The investigation shows that, in general, half of the destroyed products were never used and were in their original packaging. The other half corresponds to items returned by customers, which could still have been used.
Why destroy new products?
It all comes down to the cost factor. Many sellers ship their products to Amazon warehouses, but the company charges a fee for storing them. This means that if a product is stranded, it will incur increased storage costs for the supplier.
In the end, it turns out that it is cheaper to destroy products than to keep them in stock, especially when the items are from abroad.
Amazon defends itself
When contacted, Amazon made it clear that it was working to reach its zero elimination goal, though it didn’t say when it intended to reach it. The company also stated that it prioritizes reselling, donating or recycling unsold products.
You have more. report ITV News It shows some kind of landfill to get rid of the product, but Amazon has denied sending goods to that kind of location. According to the company, the point the report makes is made up of the recycling center.
“Finally, we ship the items to recover energy [incineração], but we are working hard to reduce the number of times this happens to zero,” says Amazon in the same answer.
This isn’t the first time Amazon dumps have been reported. In 2019, a TV channel revealed that the company was releasing 3 million products annually in France. A year ago, the company was denounced in Germany for ignoring returned products, but in perfect use or operating conditions.
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