In defense of JoAnn, I worked at a chain that no longer exists. My district manager would let me donate some things but usually when I call the schools or other they would be happy to take if i would drop it off. I was already working a low paying job for 60 hours a week and frankly they didn't want the things that badly if they couldn't pick up. [ If i said it was cash they would have been over right away.] I considered it charitable giving when I tossed things. The dumpster divers were always right there and they came a got it right away.

I'd be more than willing to forward a letter to corporate offices & forward on to friends to send, if someone wants to do this.

I know someone whose son occasionally goes to the "DUNKIN DONUTS" at certain late hours and gets boxes on donuts before they would have been tossed into the dumpster.......according to "law" I guess, if they donate and someone gets "sick" there could be a gigantic law suit.

My daughter once (for about a week) worked at a distribution center for Mernard's...same thing there with returns.....dumped. Granted some things were broken, pieces missing but many things were just returned because customer decided did not want and into the dumpster it goes....and employees are not allowed to take anything home...all must be destroyed.....see how wasteful we are!!!!!!!!!

Throwing into the trash makes NO money. Donating it to a non-profit is a tax deduction, so they make money by donating.

In some towns dumpster diving is considered stealing and people can go to jail for it.

girl. I have knocked my head against the wall with Joanns throwing things away. they finally started giving stuff to Good Will. I have worked at Joanns for 3 years. Before I lost my mom 3 months ago I tried for 3 years to get to give the stuff to Moms nursing home or any nursing home. They would of loved it. They have to throw the magazines away too. But I will ask on the ribbon for sure.
We are such a wastefull country. But not us quilters we use every piece lol:D

I worked for a grocery store chain in Houston and you would not belive the food that was trown away,Whole cooked chickens sandwitches and deli stuff. In the dumpster it went. When I asked about donating it it homeless shelter I was told it had been at keeped at the hot temp for the maxamum time allotted and if they gave it away they could be sued if someone got sick. When the homeless people found out about it and tryed to retrve it they built a huge fence around the bins. That made me so sad and 25 years latter it still bothers me

It is sad that they do things this way

I was told last week by a goodwill employee that Target does not donate to goodwill. They sell it to them at a reduced rate. This is why there is a T marked below the price. They would also not give a 25% discount to military and seniors on Wednesdays on items with a T on them.Thought it was interesting that goodwill bought things to sell.

My friends DH is one of the "higher ups" in Target. According to him, they donate merchandise after it's been reduced so much and seasonal items that are left/returned.

I can tell you about books, at least paperbooks. Books stores don't actually buy the books at the time when they are delivered. They order, the books are shipped and if they don't sell within a specified amount of time (4,6,8 weeks) the stores have to do the following: either pay to return and get credit or strip the covers, throw out the books and send in the covers to show that they didn't sell. Otherwise, they have to pay to return books that didn't sell. For the store, it's cheaper to toss books and send the covers in.

SandyQuilter

that is like using red spray paint on wedding gowns and cutting them up. so stupid.

I was in my local JoAnn's just this week and there was a display of Christmas decorations that someone asked the manager about and he told her "they are not for sale, we give them to Goodwill". So at least the Waterville, ME. store donates.

Sadly, they get more money back by sending pattern envelopes, book covers, ends of ribbon spools, etc. back to the manufacturers than they would if they marked the items down and sold them.

i was at Sams Wholesale grocery store the other night and in the meat dept they had roasted chicken , it looked good and i was going to get one for dinner, the store was closing in about 20 minutes and i asked the guy are you going to mark these down sice there were about 10 of them and it was 20 min. till closeing and he said no! what is left he was going to toss in the garbage out back !!! wow that was a big waste of food . years ago i worked at Kohls and about once a month we would sit in the back room and go thru the damaged or left over clothes that were at the end of there selling time , we would cut a slit somewhere (were the manager told us to ) and then the clothes were shipped off to a poor country to be given to the people there , because of the fact if they were given out here in the community some people would try and return them for cash , this way sending to another country they were appreciated

awe i was just telling hubby about this and told him i need to sit out back at joanns and go dumpster diving !!!!! and he informed me that here it is against the law to go inside of a dumpster !! you will go to jail!!! darn and i thought i would have a "nightime hobby " and save money at the same time

Amazing, and we wonder why we cannot compete in the world economy!

Dumpster diving is NOT legal. If you get caught it is afelony as you are stealing. Doesn't make any difference if it was thrown away or not. check your state laws before doing this. I used to do a lot of couponing years ago when it was worth something to send in for rebates. People would go dumpster diving until the cops caught one and they were in trouble over it. Beside someone may have thrown a use needle or syringe in there and you could get stuck.

It seems so wrong to just throw away good stuff. Even food, you would think could maybe go to a food pantry unless it is outdated. There are so many places that would be grateful for the donations. They could maybe allow each place so much in donations per year so everyone gets something and no one place gets it "all". Our society is very wasteful.
I would think that it is better to donate and get a tax deduction, than to just throw away, maybe get a write off of some sort.

Anyone who has netflix has to watch Dive! Living off Americas Waste. It is about a few named grocery stores and what they throw away and this group tries to go to the corporate offices trying to get them to donate the food. It is a really good socumentary.

So many of these wasteful practices are a direct result of people trying to cheat ('returning' items thrown away) or litigation. Businesses have now been 'trained' by these abusers to do ridiculous things. And as always, if you want change you have to make it more worthwhile to change than to keep up the current practices, and find a way to have the ear of the people who can enact the change.

In the San Francisco Bay Area we have a somewhat new not-for-profit company who solicits any leftover materials from the Garment District of SF. They go and pickup the materials, scraps, ribbons, etc which would otherwise go to the local dumps. The material is sorted and given away for free once a month or more. Anyone can join their membership and get this free material. They even have special give-away dates for school teachers or others who deal with the public. All they request is that anything made not be sold in large quantities. In fact they hold boutiques at least twice a year to show off and sell what folks have made with these leftovers.

They can do this because the cost to dump the materials in the SF Bay Area is extreme, so it is cheaper for the manufacturers of clothing and other fabric type materials to get rid of their scraps this way rather than pay to dump the stuff. I have not heard if the Joann's in this area is contributing to this company.

There have been some really nice things come through this group. It really helps my quilt guild get large amounts of similar types of material to make kits for our community quilt program and for our prison quilt project.

By having one charity coordinate the material dispersal with the rest of the charities and groups in the area, it takes the donor companies out of the loop of having to decide who gets the stuff next (so they don't have to get into the politics of keeping the competing local charities happy).

Best thing: The material gets used rather than take up valuable space in our landfill. The families who get these quilts have been happy, and the guild members have been happy. It's a true win/win situation.

DH worked produce for a very large grocery chain. They dumped tons of good food, not out of date, just not "pretty". If a banana had one spot, out it goes. It made me sick, him too, as it could go to shelters but not to be. I always wanted to let the tv stations know so they could monitor and tell America what is happening.

yes it is sad and very true. I ran a food chain and everything written off was covered with bleach before placed int he dumpster. one time the frozen foods went down and hams were accounted for and then sliced and covered with bleach to avoid a law suit. sad but the sign of the times. can sue even it is put to trash.

My DFIL, the salesman, always said, "the bottom line is the bottom line." Everything is done to make the bottom line look good.

I understand that, but this is the same JoAnn's store where I saw flawed fabric rolled back on the bolt and put out for sale the day after I refused to purchase it. OK I am going to take a leap of faith and write to JA corporate and see what I hear back.....probably a "canned" reply such as I received from the JCP screaming ad that has been running for the last several days.

I have sent an email to JA corporate - let's see what I hear back - if anything.

How very sad.

I worked for HL years ago, our manager would go nuts when he found people digging in the dumpster. He even went as far as to get itching powder to dump in it to try and get people to stop digging. We were to brake everything down little pieces to try and stop it.

There are strict rules against "dumpster diving" but when I was young and we bought a house but couldn't afford to buy landscaping stuff, I would periodically check the dumpsters at Kmart and when they would throw away "old" bedding plants, I would "dive in" on the sly and pull them out. Planted many a flower bed doing that over the years. Maybe someone would have to inventory and account for where all the stuff went that they get rid of and no one wants to take on what would probably be a monster responsibility?

I work at Hancock Fabrics and we have a policy about donating to non-profits. We regularly donate all of our unsold stuff to a local place. They just need to be considered at "501" status - which I am sure is assigned through the government. I would be JF could do that too. It does take a little more work but is far better to do all around!!!

vendor policy
 

I manage a retial store and the policy is to distroy what we call defective items. This policy comes from the vendors. They do not want to give us our money back and let us use or donate it.

I worked for Walmart years ago and saw them doing the same thing. Tearing the covers off books and tossing them. They said we were not allowed to take them, they had to be thrown away. Sad to me though, they can't pass those savings on to their customers at a discount, you would think that even 50% they would sell all of it.

I am pretty sure dumpster diving, curb and ally cruising are our American rights. Maybe we should rename the activity to dumpster recyclers and recyclable locaters.

Usually there is something very wrong with the product for it to be destroyed. Often the mfg. doesn't want it back because it can't be recycled or the cost factor in transportation to return is a large factor. It is a waste, yes, the only way to change it is to write or call the company or mfg. to protest. Once I tried to buy, potted plants from Home Depot that were dying due to lack of water. The wouldn't even mark them down, instead I watched them get pitched into the dumpster. Gads what a waste!

A lot of things being tossed is not up to the store but the manufacturers rules. I used to be just sick about all the patterns that had to be tossed. The whole pattern was tossed including the sleeves. McCalls and Simplicity companys would send you a list of the patterns to be pulled and tossed. We had no control about the matter. It came down from the manufacturers

I cannot vouch for why JoAnne's employees would do that, but when I worked for Mill Fabrics and Cloth World years ago, we used to do the same thing with patterns. As a style went out we were required to cut the envelope apart and then dump all the pattern pieces into the trash. Some employees used to make their own envelopes and write the pattern numbers and sizes on them and save the pattern pieces. That was illegal and they could have gotten themselves into a lot of trouble that way. I also think some found they never used those "savings" because they could not visualize the end product like they might have if they could have saved the pictures or the pattern envelope.

I really think it has to do with future sales. Patterns especially return after so many years because styles change. You can find old patterns online these days and people still make good money off them. Mind you they may cost $1 in stead of $10 or $20, but someone is making money.

I cannot explain the ribbon being wasted. Schools surely should be given a chance to use them in art or home economics classes. Now you know my age, because nobody teaches home economics these days. I can never remember what they call that class these days. It has nothing to do with sewing skills though.

As a former employee of JA it was extremely sad to see this happen. But like many corporate businesses, they actually receive more by writing the item off then giving it away or even putting it on 90% clearance. And dumpster diving is stealing. What a shame it was to see items that needed minor repair/still in good condition/fabulous but slighting flawed items being thrown away. So much waste and so many that could be helped with these items - such as providing equipment/fabrics to help teach others a trade, supplies for organizations making items for those in need, help in fund raising events for various people, supplies for our local schools, etc... Corporates also frond on the required paperwork when items are donated. Our world of rules and regulations make it vertually impossible to help others without it costing those donating the items. It's got to be depressing working at a landfill and to see all this stuff that rightfully should be recycled/repurposed.

Costco does the same thing. But...be careful in their dumpsters cause they prosecute.
It's a crying shame what is thrown away. :(