TV says Amazon destroys thousands of unsold products every week

A warehouse of tech and online commerce giant Amazon destroys thousands of unsold inventory items every week, according to a report from Independent TV (ITV), from the United Kingdom, based on a complaint by a former employee and video footage recorded inside the warehouse in Dunfermline, Scotland. Among the items destroyed were new products such as laptops, smart TVs, books, electronic equipment and Covid-19 masks.

The former Amazon employee, who asked not to be identified, told the TV channel that warehouse workers have a weekly goal of destroying 130,000 items. This claim is supported by an internal memo seen by the report, which states that in a week in April, 124,000 objects were marked as “destroyed.” In the same week, 28,000 products were classified as “donations.”

The recording made secretly by the report in the warehouse shows the volume of waste. Products that are not sold or returned by consumers are dumped into large containers and transported by truck for disposal at recycling centers or landfills.

The former employee said that “From Friday to Friday, our overall goal was to destroy 130,000 items per week.” About half of the products were packaged for transportation and the other half were returned in good condition.

“I was shocked. There is no logic about what was destroyed: Dyson fans, vacuum cleaners, sometimes MacBooks and iPads. In one day, 20,000 Covid masks are still on the package,” the person told ITV.

An Amazon spokesperson said in a press release that the Dunfermline unit is responsible for products destined for destruction across the UK, and that the landfill shown by the report is also a recycling centre. The representative said Amazon is “working towards its goal of zero-production” and that the company’s priority is to “resell, donate to charitable organizations, or recycle unsold products.”

“Ultimately, we ship items to restore energy, but we are working hard to reduce the number of times this happens to zero,” the company says.

in 2019, undercover journalists It found that Amazon destroyed more than 3 million products in one year in France.

ITV explains that one of the reasons why so many products have been destroyed is the huge success of Amazon’s business model. Many sellers choose to store their items in Amazon warehouses. But the longer unsold items remain, the more the company will pay to store them. There comes a time when it is cheaper to destroy goods than to continue to pay for storage.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the investigation “seems preposterous” and “an allegation from a consumer society”. “If that’s what you’re saying, let’s find out,” he added, noting that the state has taxes and programs to prevent products from ending up in landfills. “We want to see more reuse and recycling. Above all, people stop using things that will eventually pollute our seas and our world,” the prime minister said.