A Distinct Lack of Goodwill

The other thing that's currently grinding my gears, so to speak, is something we found out about today when we made a stop at Goodwill. We were going to pick up a few books, and we noticed an employee who was busy sorting through books, finding all of the books with a red tag on them, and tossing them into a plastic tub. We asked what he was doing, and apparently, he was gathering up all of the books (and everything else) with a red tag and throwing them out. Apparently, every Monday through Wednesday, they throw out everything that hasn't sold yet that has a tag that matches the first of the two 'tags on sale for the week'.

From a certain standpoint, I understand why they'd rather claim this merchandise as destroyed than to donate it elsewhere, despite the fact that that's how they acquire it in the first place. They need to make room for new inventory that might sell, and all of that. I can even understand - to a point - why it is that they can't sell the discards in bulk rather than just throw them out, as I'm sure it would encourage more people to only purchase in bulk rather than to purchase while it's 'on the shelf.' I've worked in retail for six years, and I do understand why it's more cost-effective sometimes to destroy merchandise than to give it to homeless shelters and preschools and veteran's associations. I don't like it, but I understand it.

Here's what's bothering me.

They set the tags that will be on sale for the week on Saturdays - always two colors per week. They start throwing out everything that matches one of those tags on Monday through Wednesday. That means that only one of the tags is actually 'on sale' for the duration of the week, and the other is most likely occupying a dumpster before the week's half over. It just feels vaguely dishonest to advertise that tagged merchandise will be on sale if you've already gone through and thrown it all away, not to mention wasteful. Considering how many dumpsters are in the back of the Goodwill - and the size of the garbage truck we saw hauling their discards away - one must imagine that there is a severe environmental impact from this sort of practice, especially if this is the policy on a state-wide or nation-wide level. Plus, many of the books they destroy are in good condition - someone might've read them once, then donated them with the expectation that they'd get a new home, and as it turns out, these books are headed straight for a landfill unless they sell quickly enough.

Laura and I want to find out more about this, because we can't help but feel this is sort of shameful. I've been picking up a few books here and there to sell on Half.com, but if this is what they do with perfectly good books, I might have to pick up more than a few... both of us are bibliophiles, and we'd much rather see these books in the hands of someone that might read them than in the garbage heaps.

One or both of us will write more when we know more about the subject and can approach it in a reasonable manner -- this might be a good article for Common Cents, if we find out enough information. You don't generally expect that when you donate things to Goodwill, they're going to be tossed in the landfill, you know?