I was doing research for my blog when I stumbled across a staggering amount of evidence that an increasing number of brands are deliberately trashing their own products to create scarcity and drive prices up.
We’re talking about an incredible carbon footprint that goes into creating products that go straight to landfills.
How is this even legal?
We need to transition from a culture that implicitly believes that infinite waste is not a problem. According to a story I read in the NYT this morning, more than 10 million tons of office furniture in the United States end up in a landfill every year. Ten million tons! And it’s all just handled by people doing their jobs, nobody able to stop the cogs and ask if we’ve lost our minds.
The guy who invented Keurig, with its disposable plastic pods, later said that he regretted it after seeing how much waste it created. I think if we had a healthy culture, Keurig couldn’t have been invented as it was because the inventor would’ve foreseen the waste and found it totally a nonstarter.
Bingo.
When you stop treating negative externalities as though they don’t exist, you can start to properly account for their cost in economic models. A lot of industries exist that wouldn’t if they were to have to actually pay to remediate the problems they cause rather than getting to offload the problem onto the greater community.
I think the answer is no, they shouldn’t be banned. What should be banned is this practice of artificial scarcity through trashing perfectly good product. They should either produce less of them or lower the price to match the demand.
The problem stems from the fact that brands want their products to be made readily accessible to anyone who wants to order with next-day delivery, which means there needs to be a surplus to satisfy customers’ cravings for instant gratification… but a surplus would drive prices down, which is why they mass-produce products, then immediately trash whatever is not sold.
It sickens me to know this is even a thing. But what can be done to prevent it?
This isn’t a practice limited to luxury brands, Abercrombie and Fitch did the same thing and their ass ugly CEO (back in 2013) said he didn’t want ugly people wearing his clothes.
The practice should be banned.
We’re talking about an incredible carbon footprint that goes into creating products
You can stop the sentence there. The major issue is the negative impact manufacturing stuff has on the planet. If all the fancy clothing they made was purchased, would it make a difference? The planet is still fucked, but now everyone is looking sharp!
How would it be illegal?
Luxury as in intentionally scarce yes, high quality or in demand no
Why don’t they just not make as much?
When you order something with 2-day delivery, it not only needs to be in stock… but it needs to be in a warehouse in your city. This requirement means there needs to be a surplus.
They don’t know where the orders will come in, so they make enough to send them to every warehouse in the country. But if all of them got sold, the supply would drive the price down. So, they wait until a certain number gets sold (say… a few hundred) and then destroy the rest.
It’s sickening that this is even a thing. But that’s the world we live in.
