This post is not a criticism of Wegmans in general, even if they are the particular example. Goodness knows I'm finding their cafe area with free internet access the perfect sabbatical concentration place for actually making progress on the diss (a solid 1/3 drafted after a year with only a dozen pages). The concern is how policies on damaged items are promoting bad recycling and economics.
I find myself spending a lot of time at Wegmans. Logically, I bought a nice coffee cup to avoid the paper waste. But I didn't want to purchase their plastic no.5 as seen on the left. It may be low on its leaching into your coffee, but it's just not well recycled.
So I opted for the deep red, stainless steel mug (online pic not available) which should last till J says it has to be thrown out because it's now 20 years old. Both have pop on compared to threaded tops, which I'm not thrilled about--maybe I'll only get 10 years out of it. However, I didn't look closely enough at the mug I bought; people waiting in line behind you are only going to be so patient. And I bought a mug with a sizable dent in it. OK, so I go to customer service and ask if I can get a damage discount. The answer they gave is the one I expected, but bad policy for any company looking to be
green.
They will exchange the mug for me for a new one or my money back and then throw out the damaged one. When I worked at Sears almost twenty years ago, us warehouse workers spent around a 1/2 hour a week smashing up perfectly usable returns because people didn't want them with some imperfection. I do understand not wanting damaged goods, but the problem is there is no incentive for most stores to put perfectly usable goods into the market. Before they are dropped in the dumpster, they are crushed or made unusable, this prevents dumpster divers from profiting, even if dumpster divers are more green than the business claiming greenship. The companies have contracts with the manufacturers to get money back on the goods. Some items carry insurance such as for spilled milk in a grocery store. Or they use the IRS to file a yearly loss within one's own company--making damaged goods not resold as tax deductible. Resale would lose them money. The accounting is in place to make sure most damaged goods are compensated for without selling them. Uhhg!
It's still simply more profitable to junk things. And so I told customer service thanks for the exchange offer but I couldn't let the mug I bought for the primary reason of being green go to a landfill. I guess this is all to say if you see some guy at Wegmans with a dented coffee mug, don't assume he's careless. Consider that it may be a badge of pride in not having let bad policy throw out a perfectly usable coffee mug.
