Hidden Cameras and Secret Trackers Reveal Where Amazon Returns End Up
An Anonymous Coward writes:
Hidden cameras and secret trackers reveal where Amazon returns end up:
It's safe to say that online shoppers like the promise of easy - and even better, free - returns. But it may surprise consumers to learn what can actually happen to all those unwanted items.
A Marketplace investigation into Amazon Canada has found that perfectly good items are being liquidated by the truckload - and even destroyed or sent to landfill. Experts say hundreds of thousands of returns don't end up back on the e-commerce giant's website for resale, as customers might think.
Marketplace journalists posing as potential new clients went undercover for a tour at a Toronto e-waste recycling and product destruction facility with hidden cameras. During that meeting, a representative revealed they get "tons and tons of Amazon returns," and that every week their facility breaks apart and shreds at least one tractor-trailer load of Amazon returns, sometimes even up to three to five truckloads.
"We're not the only ones. We couldn't handle all of Amazon. There's no way. It is so - it's like cockroaches, it multiplies. It's incredible," said the operations manager.
[...] "Some of it will go into landfill," said the operations manager. "Like, nothing 100 per cent goes into recycling. It just is not possible."
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