[net-gold] RETAIL: Unsold H&M Clothes Found in Rubbish Bags as Homeless Face Winter Chill
- From: "David P. Dillard" <jwne@xxxxxxxxxx>
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- Date: Fri, 8 Jan 2010 05:45:42 -0500 (EST)
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Unsold H&M Clothes Found in Rubbish Bags as Homeless Face Winter Chill
Unsold H&M Clothes Found in Rubbish Bags as Homeless Face Winter Chill
Megastore at the centre of a storm of protest after New York graduate
student discovers bags of cut up garments
Ed Pilkington in New York
Guardian.co.uk
Thursday 7 January 2010
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/07/h-m-wal-mart-clothes-found>
The clothing megastore H&M has found itself at the centre of an angry
protest after one of its leading outlets in Manhattan was accused of
cutting up unsold garments and dumping them in rubbish bags on the street.
The claim that the global chain was destroying unused clothes in the
middle of one of the bitterest winters and deepest recessions to have hit
New York in many years led to an outpouring of angry comments on Twitter.
The company, based in Sweden, said it was looking into the incident and
emphasised its commitment to community responsibility.
Rubbish bags full of pristine clothes were found by a graduate student of
the City University of New York, who came across them one night as she
walked to the subway.
The student, Cynthia Magnus, tracked them to the 34th Street H&M store, a
popular venue for tourists and New Yorkers in the centre of Manhattan.
Inside the bags were gloves with the fingers cut off, socks, patent
leather shoes with the instep cut up, and warm men's jackets slashed
across the body and arms. "It was a very frigid night, and there were bags
upon bags of warm winter clothing not 50 feet away from where a homeless
man slept on cardboard boxes," she said.
Shocked by what she had found, she took some of the bags home to Brooklyn
and tried to salvage the clothes. She contacted H&M's Swedish headquarters
complaining about the dumping, and when she received no reply took the
story to the New York Times. She also exposed an alleged dumping exercise
carried out by a contractor of America's largest retailer, Wal-Mart, on
the neighbouring block.
According to the Coalition for the Homeless, the number of people sleeping
rough in New York city has reached its highest level since the Great
Depression of the 1930s. There are thought to be about 39,000 people who
do not have a home, including more than 10,000 families and 16,500
children.
Clothing Retailer Says It Will No Longer Destroy Unworn Garments
By JIM DWYER
Published: January 6, 2010
New York Times
<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/07/nyregion/07clothes.html>
The clothing retailer H & M promised on Wednesday to stop destroying new,
unworn clothing that it cannot sell at its store in Herald Square, and
would instead donate the garments to charities.
The practice was discovered by Cynthia Magnus, a graduate student at the
City University of New York, who found bags of unworn but mutilated
clothing that had been thrown away by H & M on West 35th Street. She also
found bags of new Wal-Mart garments with holes punched through them.
After Ms. Magnus wrote to H & Ms headquarters in Sweden and got no
response, she contacted The New York Times. More slashed clothing was
found Monday night on 35th Street and reported in the About New York
column on Wednesday.
It will not happen again, said Nicole Christie, a spokeswoman for H & M in
New York. We are committed 100 percent to make sure this practice is not
happening anywhere else, as it is not our standard practice.
About New York
A Clothing Clearance Where More Than Just the Prices Have Been Slashed
By JIM DWYER
Published: January 5, 2010
New York Times
<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/06/nyregion/06about.html>
In the bitter cold on Monday night, a man and woman picked apart a pyramid
of clear trash bags, the discards of the HM clothing store that reigns in
blazing plate-glass glory on 34th Street, just east of Sixth Avenue in
Manhattan.
At the back entrance on 35th Street, awaiting trash haulers, were bags of
garments that appear to have never been worn. And to make sure that they
never would be worn or sold, someone had slashed most of them with box
cutters or razors, a familiar sight outside H & Ms back door. The man and
woman were there to salvage what had not been destroyed.
He worked quickly, never uttering a word. A bag was opened and eyed, and
if it held something of promise, was tossed at the feet of the woman. She
said her name was Pepa.
Were the clothes usually cut up before they were thrown out?
A veces, she said in Spanish. Sometimes.
She packed up a few items that had escaped the blade a bright green
T-shirt that said Summer of Surf, and a dark-blue hoodie in size 12, with
a Divided label. The rest was returned to the pyramid.
It is winter. A third of the city is poor. And unworn clothing is being
destroyed nightly.
A few doors down on 35th Street, hundreds of garments tagged for sale in
Wal-Mart hoodies and T-shirts and pants were discovered in trash bags
the week before Christmas, apparently dumped by a contractor for Wal-Mart
that has space on the block.
Each piece of clothing had holes punched through it by a machine.
They were found by Cynthia Magnus, who attends classes at the Graduate
Center of the City University of New York on Fifth Avenue and noticed the
piles of discarded clothing as she walked to the subway station in Herald
Square. She was aghast at the waste, and dragged some of the bags home to
Brooklyn, hoping that someone would be willing to take on the job of
patching the clothes and making them wearable.
A Wal-Mart spokeswoman, Melissa Hill, said the company normally donates
all its unworn goods to charities, and would have to investigate why the
items found on 35th Street were discarded.
H&M Apologizes for Destroying, Trashing Unsold Clothes, Sort Of
By Mackenzie Schmidt in Fashion,
Featured, Mackenzie Schmidt
Thursday, Jan. 7 2010 @ 5:09PM
Village Voice
<http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/
archives/2010/01/hm_apologizes_f.php>
A shorter URL for the above link:
<http://tinyurl.com/ydh8zmb>
On Tuesday, the Times published a story on retail giant H&M's shady
practice of purposely destroying and trashing brand new unsold clothes at
their Herald Square location after a CUNY grad student, Cynthia Magnus,
came forward with her discovery of bags upon bags of brand new,
deliberately ruined clothing in the alley behind one of the store's 10
Manhattan outposts. Magnus had written to the Swedish company offering to
help organize a charitable way for the store to donate the unsold items,
but it was the Times that brought the situation at West 35th Street to the
attention of pissed off shoppers, and supposedly, that of H&M spokeswoman
Nicole Christie. Christie issued a shocked gasp of a statement denying any
knowledge of the wasteful methods, and announcing an investigation of just
the Herald Square location.
Today, Christie kind of apologized, saying, "It will not happen again."
Unfortunately H&M's Facebook page is still overrun with angry customers,
some, like Magnus, offering to help organize the official policy of
charitable donations, while others maintain they will no longer patronize
the international chain--sparkly headbands and $5 sales be damned.
Perhaps the most telling response to the scandal, however, are the
Facebook wall posts of people who claim to be current and former
employees, like Camelia Williams and Brandi R. McNally, and say they know
of, and have abided by the same practice at other H&M locations.
H&M, Walmart Reportedly Destroy and Discard Unsold Clothing
Posted Jan 7th 2010 at 10:00AM
by Melissa Schweiger
Stylist
http://www.stylelist.com/2010/01/07/
handm-walmart-reportedly-destroys-and-discards-unsold-clothing/>
A shorter URL for the above link:
<http://tinyurl.com/yz6w9j5>
A manager in the H&M store on 34th Street told the Times that "inquiries
about its disposal practices had to be made to its United States
headquarters." But after 10 phone calls and emails, no one from H&M HQ
ever responded back to the paper.
While a Walmart spokesperson told the paper that they "normally donate all
unworn goods to charities and would have to investigate why the items
found on 35th Street were discarded."
Sounds like garments aren't the only things that these retailers might
have to patch up.
------------------------------------------
The complete articles may be read at the URLs provided for each.
WEBBIB0910
Sincerely,
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Temple University
(215) 204 - 4584
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