sample sales: This week the New York Times reported a disheartening story about two of the largest retail chains. You see, instead of taking unsold items to sample sales or donating them to people in need, H&M and Wal-Mart have been throwing them out in giant trash bags. And in the case that someone may stumble on these bags and try to keep or re-sell the items, these companies have gone ahead and slashed up garments, cut off the sleeves of coats, and sliced holes in shoes so they are unwearable. This unsettling discovery was made by graduate student Cynthia Magnus outside the back entrance of H&M on 35th street in New York City. Just a few doors down, she also found hundreds of Wal-Mart tagged items with holes made in them that were dumped by a contractor. http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/beauty/h-…|||Thank you for that information. One more reason why I don't shop Walmart anymore. It's pathetic when one of the richest companies in the world, owned by one of the richest people in the world don't help out the neediest in the world...|||wow... thats awful... if they are throwing them in the trash anyways, why not donate them to charity...|||yea, what a complete waste, corporate american is the reason why so many suffer today.|||Completely agreed with you. They scoff at carrying even minorly "racy" magazines, or any explicit lyrics in their audio...but to me this is the ULTIMATE offense.|||Your point is? Who cares what they do with their stuff they can still be a family store. Restaurants throw out leftover food at closing time, no matter whether there's one serving left in a pan or 23 out of 24. It goes into the dumpster. Talk about wasteful! While warm clothes are very important too, they won't make that much of a difference without food|||that's stupid!! think of all the family's i need! they could donate all those clothes to orphanages and homeless shelters!|||I was not aware of any such practice. This is appalling. I am disgusted as you are that there are suffering people right here in our Country, not to mention the millions suffering around the world. How could such a corporation be so stupid? To destroy the products so that no one can get any use out of them. Just sickening. I will remember this next time I consider shopping at one of these stores. Thank you for schooling me on this info.|||Wal-Mart's only objective is to make money, and they do it off the backs of the poor. They have no interest in helping anyone other than themselves as a corporation, more profit, higher value in the stock market.....Don't get me started.....|||This isn't specific to Wal-mart. Most big corporations do things like this. I once worked for a grocery store that would throw out enormous bags of day-old bread every day. Perfectly good bread. But if an employee takes any "garbage" bread home or gives it away, that's a crime and they're fired. It was incredibly frustrating walking home and passing by homeless people on the streets after having just thrown out enough food to feed all of them.|||Yeah, I never shop there.|||No surprises there. Walmart knows if they donate the clothes to the salvation army, hospice thrift shops or some other charity people will buy them and not come to walmart. They have shown their true colors in many other ways, forcing small businesses out by selling cheap chinese made junk while the mom and pop stores try to sell quality American made.|||I know this has been going on for a while. I used to work for a place that would buy stuff cheap in bulk from either stores that were closing and needed to liquidate there merchandise or just stuff that was no long wanted by the store and turn around and sell them to anybody that would want them. Usually we would find garments that would have holes in them (not to the point that they showed in the picture in the article though). Usually the holes were located in the shoulder area or in the back. When we asked about it we were told it was to deter from theft on the mannequins. It didn't look good to have the anti-shoplifting tags on it so they would mutilate the garment to prevent theft.|||It's not right, but those two stores are NOT the only ones, most stores do the same. Research it. Ask yourself "WHY" did they brought out only those two. Coming from the New York Times, it's completely clear their intentions. And, again, I'm not saying is right, but if the subject is brought up, why not making clear that is a common practice of many stores.|||I'm sorry but it tends not to upset me too much. Wal-Mart has a good history with charitable causes, notably CMN and Muscular Dystrophy. Many stores do the same thing. Food is a different matter. Clothing can be literally had for free. Go to a yard sale and pick all you want; they'll be happy to get rid of it.