E-commerce retail giant Amazon faced ire from the French government after a TV report showed the retailer destroying thousands of unsold or returned products, in France alone.
The report showed drone footage of discarded items headed to incinerators or landfills, which environmental activists denounced as an “ecological disaster.”
Brune Poirson, a secretary of state for France’s ecological transition, said that she was “shocked” by the allegations and would render businesses “responsible” for such practices.
“In the coming months a law will be passed in parliament that will outlaw this type of activity. Companies like Amazon will no longer be able to throw away products that can still be used.” – Brune Poirson, Secretary of State, Ecological Transition, France
These products are offered by external merchants on Amazon and are kept in its distribution centres. The contract between Amazon and its external merchants supposedly states that unsold goods can be returned to the merchant or destroyed. Items that have spent too much time on the shelves are thrown onto the dump.
Amazon stated that it is working with charity organizations such as Dons Solidaires and food banks to make donations of the unsold objects to people who need them but it was financially not possibly to give such quantity of products because Franch law imposes VAT on all objects that are given as donations.
Amazon has faced similar accusations in Germany, where national weekly WirtschaftsWoche and broadcaster ZDF reported that huge amounts of new and returned goods from mobile phones to refrigerators were routinely destroyed.
