Green Shopping: The Great Return Policy Problem

Even the wonder of exceptional customer service doesn't come with a side of wastefulness and environmental harm. In fact, most features that stores offer to please customers and keep them coming back create conflict with their so-called "going green" programs - which are supposed to entice the growing number of educated consumers. Fancy bagging and pretty packaging continues to be a selling point - would shoppers rather be seen with a pretty logo bag or a re-usable tote, and would they rather by quality product with minimal packaging or quality product with extravagant packaging? At this point in the environmental movement, it's still a tough call.

But the return-policy is proven effective, and this is in part because consumers either believe that their returned items are being fixed up and resold, or because they don't consider what happens after the transaction. And the truth is, most returns, due to safety and health codes aren't fit for re-selling or worth the company's time or money to fix. Few companies have programs for giving products to charity or making product donations - especially in corporations, where this sometimes is not even allowed.

In fact, most returns are thrown away, and in a time where the ability to make returns is often encouraged as a selling point, this is a huge point of consumerist waste that should be handled effectively. To stores whose packaging fills mall-dumpsters nightly, a small bin of returned items may not seem so wasteful, but these products become product or e-waste when many organizations, or consumers looking for a discount, would love re-furbished versions of them. A used lipstick could be cleaned and donated, or a returned GPS could be fixed or re-packaged and resold, but often this is more trouble than it's worth.

The best way to reduce this sort of waste as a consumer is to try or get recommendations before you buy, and if it just doesn't work out, try to find another use for a product yourself or get it fixed rather than return it to the store. If you're a return-junkie, buy only from stores that are responsible with their returns, and encourage the stores you frequently shop at to adopt similar programs. If you work in sales, use your position to present a new return-policy policy and oversee it.

For more environmental lifestyle coverage, see RTM's Earth Tones archives.

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Comments

[Kirsten Corsaro]

This is an interesting problem that I think most people don't think about...a great opportunity for stores to choose better policies. It's not just that products end up in landfills. All the energy used manufacturing and shipping them is wasted, too, when the product never gets used.