LOVE STOCK - HATE WASTE

We are calling on CEOs from all UK retailers and brands to pledge to donate or redistribute rather than destroy their stock. 

We are also calling on the government to put in place a targeted tax which would make it more expensive for companies to destroy than to donate useable stock.

Brands and retailers, including the likes of Amazon, are known to have destroyed 100,000s of perfectly useable products a week. 

See undercover footage here

These are not broken products, these are products people need - computers, TVs, tools, clothing, shoes, books, including children's books. They could be going to schools, hospitals, libraries, shelters and charities. 

Burned, smashed and tipped - these products, which are desperately needed by  people here in the UK and abroad - become pollution, landfill, garbage. 

We need both a carrot, and a stick to stop this from happening. 

THE CARROT: 
Give brands an opportunity to make the LOVE STOCK HATE WASTE pledge. 

Buy Me Once, an organisation which campaigns against throwaway culture, created this positive pledge.

"We pledge never to purposefully damage stock. All our useable returned or surplus stock will be donated, re-sold or recirculated in some way which benefits society."

Making the pledge will give brands and retailers access to affiliated experts such as In Kind Direct, who will then help to distribute useful products to the grassroutes organisations that really need them.

This is a PR win for companies who can display their pledge to the world.

See pledge page here. 

THE STICK:
A tax on all stock destroyed

For companies who still insist on destroying stock, there should be a tax, linked to the retail price of everything destroyed. This would stop this wasteful behaviour in its tracks and force retailers to come up with more ethical, less wasteful ways to distribute surplus goods and become better at controlling over-production. 

Retailers like Amazon are doing this in secret (until one brave whistle-blower filmed it) because it's cheaper and currently no one is stopping them. 

At the moment, it makes more economic sense for these retailers to trash these items than take responsibility for them. This outdated business model needs to be made impossible, and the only way that can happen is if it becomes more expensive to destroy goods than to make sure they are either put to good use, or not over-produced in the first place. 

We have a cost of living crisis and a climate crisis. There has never been a more urgent time to LOVE STOCK AND HATE WASTE. 

This petition is to the Business Secretary, Environment Secretary and PM:

Make it too expensive for retailers to do the wrong thing, and they'll be forced to put it right. Make each retailer declare the RRP of any goods destroyed at the end of the year. Tax this at a rate that will drive behavioural change.

Please sign & stop these companies getting away with crimes against planet and people.