Adding to the American landfill: Businesses wasting good merchandise

We live in a society full of abundance. The United States’ resources are in such great excess that dumpsters are flowing with fresh produce, and bonfires are no longer made of wood: They are made of thousand-dollar handbags.

Not the image that comes to mind when people mention “abundance” in the U.S.? That’s because corporations and grocery stores alike do not wish to be seen as contributors to the landfills in the U.S. Their greed for profits causes the companies to commit atrocious acts of waste, with a complete disregard for reasonable alternatives.

The National Institute of Health estimates that 40 percent of all food produced in the U.S. is thrown out. People most commonly blame their fellow citizens for this profligacy, but what many don’t realize is that grocery stores partake in this practice as well.

Stores regularly throw out blemished produce that don’t sell and baked goods leftover from the morning in surprisingly large quantities.

Journalist Jeremy Seifert, in an article for Grist.org, wrote that he manages to feed his family of five partially off of unexpired food pulled from the dumpster outside of his local Trader Joe’s. Seifert said his family is not a low income family; they just manage to save hundreds of dollars based on fresh food pulled out of the garbage.

Tossing these perfectly fine foods away is wasteful and unnecessary; there are other places these foods can go besides the trash can. Slightly bruised fruits that picky consumers refuse to purchase could be sold to canning companies, since small bruising does not affect the overall quality of the fruit.

As for the baked goods, stores could follow in Panera Bread’s footsteps: donating unsold bread to local charities.

Let’s consider hunger in the United States. According to Worldhunger.org, one in seven households in the U.S. in 2011 was “food insecure,” meaning that the family is either “hungry, or at risk of hunger.” If the U.S. reduced its food waste by even 15 percent, the country could feed around 25 million more people annually.

Brand names such as Chanel and Abercrombie & Fitch also throw away their unpurchased merchandise.

Chanel burns its products in favor of the alternative: creating a chain of outlet stores (only one official outlet store exists, located in New York City). Doing so prevents Chanel’s products from being sold underpriced and avoids issues with counterfeit merchandise.

Abercrombie & Fitch destroys its clothing for an even more outrageous reason. According to CEO Michael Jeffries, the clothing store doesn’t donate its leftover clothing to charities because it would ruin Abercrombie’s “cool kid” image if homeless children were found wearing the brand.

These brands exemplify a different type of waste: selfish waste. These companies have grown so large that they can afford to destroy their own merchandise.

The fact is that the United State’s waste production has gone out of control, and supermarkets and brand-name stores aren’t helping at all. Instead of focusing on raking in the profits, companies should consider more resource-saving alternatives.