TONS OF NEW GOODS TRASHED

IN SEASON OF GIVING, CHARITIES ARE BYPASSED

In this season of giving, not all new merchandise goes under the Christmas tree. Some of it goes directly from stores to the local landfill.

Clothing still in its plastic packaging with price tags, furniture that is slightly scarred, tractor-trailers filled with chain saws -- landfill operators have seen it all. In some cases, they say, the merchandise has been deliberately slashed, spotted with dye or crushed in retailers' compactors to prevent scavengers from claiming it.

"You know there are kids on the street freezing, and 500 or 600 snowsuits come in," said Sam Foster of the Sandy Hill landfill in Bowie. "You wonder if there isn't a better way."

The flow of usable goods usually rises around Christmas, or at the end of a selling season, landfill operators say.

Some charities are frustrated about the situation. Doug Hiob, vice president of operations for Baltimore Goodwill Industries, which serves Howard and Anne Arundel counties, said some retailers who refuse requests for donations say "they're afraid if the items end up in Goodwill, the items can be brought back to the retail store for an exchange."

Landfill officials have no way of estimating how much usable merchandise is dumped every year. Some say the amount appears to be declining, and many stores say they are more charity-conscious these days than they used to be, but the practice has not disappeared.

To Amos Ward, supervisor at the Brown Station landfill in Prince George's County, the dumping of usable merchandise is a symptom of a throwaway society, where if a store has a lamp with a faulty socket, "it's cheaper to dump it than to pay someone $10 an hour to fix it."

When Ann Landers ran a letter in July from a Connecticut woman who was upset that the Thom McAn shoe company dumped good merchandise at the local landfill, she was flooded with so many letters that she wrote a second column on the issue a month later.

"This one was one of the big ones," said Landers' assistant, Laurie Solomon. "People wrote in from all over the country that they had seen this going on."

Most landfills and incinerators prohibit scavenging for safety reasons, so merchandise cannot be siphoned off for charity after it is dumped.

A spokeswoman for Woodward & Lothrop, Christy Mooney, said items that cannot be sold in the store or warehouse are sent to the District's Department of Human Services. "We cannot send any to a landfill," she said.

Everything that can be manufactured also can be thrown away. Earl DeLauder, superintendent of the Lorton regional landfill, said he has seen "trailer loads of weight machines, the kind you mount on the wall. We just take it by the ton."

David Sussman, a vice president of the firm that runs the municipal waste-to-energy incinerator in Alexandria, said he has seen "huge quantities" of new disposable diapers thrown away because they were slightly defective.

Foster recalls seeing half a tractor-trailer load of chain saws; another time, it was watches -- "literally thousands of them still in the box." He estimates that half a truckload a week of usable merchandise arrives at his 100-acre landfill.

At the Prince William County landfill in Dumfries, supervisor Clarence Hall said "it's a very common occurrence, maybe two or three times a week" that good merchandise is dumped there.

Bill Pembelton, a Prince William landfill employee for 19 years, has seen dishes and glassware still in its original packaging. Last spring, recalled supervisor Mike Beebe, it was three or four truckloads of computers "still in packages."

"I've seen new shoes, with a slash through them," said Pembelton. "Or sprayed {with} fluorescent orange paint," added Beebe.

At least once a week, Hall said, a truck pulls up from the Crib'n'Cradle warehouse in Manassas with slightly damaged, brand-new goods -- cribs, strollers, car seats.

"It may have a piece of upholstery torn," he said, "but it can be used."

Crib'n'Cradle Vice President and general counsel Ralph Polachek said the company sends most unsold merchandise to charities such as maternity centers, and consigns only the worst to the landfill. He said the company does not send furniture to organizations such as Goodwill Industries, which repairs damaged goods, but "we would consider contacting them."

Store officials and retail consultants say there are a range of reasons why merchandise is dumped. In the case of pillows, mattresses, bathing suits and undergarments, the law or sanitary practice prohibits them from being resold or given away if they are returned. Some manufacturers prohibit stores from donating merchandise, in some cases because they believe it devalues their affluent image to give away an expensive item or a slightly substandard one.

Several of the people who wrote Ann Landers said when they asked their employers to consider donating unsold merchandise to charity, they were told that it is too much trouble.

But some charities see a darker side. Mitch Snyder of the Community for Creative Non-Violence said that when his homeless shelters appeal for donated clothing, "I've found an impressive amount of hostility . . . . Part of it is that they don't want our people wearing that stuff."

Some stores apparently just do not think of donating their leftovers. Goodwill's national office in Bethesda, which is embarking on a program to increase its donations of surplus merchandise, recently surveyed some of the retailers who now give their excess stock to the charity.

"When I asked them why they hadn't before," said Beth Workman of Goodwill, "they said, 'Nobody asked us.' "

Articles appear as they were originally printed in The Washington Post and may not include subsequent corrections.