You’re Getting Screwed By Free Returns | Climate Town (feat. @Danny-Gonzalez)

sure the internet might be radicalizing our grandparents

and eroding our mental health

and destroying the fabric of society

but God damn is it made buying stuff online an absolute Delight we're talking

free shipping next day delivery

and the Crown Jewel free returns did you just impulse buy a $200 above

ground pool I don't think

so brother cuz with the click of a button you can send it right

back to the shelf for someone else to buy no harm no F millions

of perfectly good products each year sent to be destroyed shelves filled with unwanted

Amazon returns 50% of all items seem to be unopened

and still in their shrink M the destination a landfill

and recycling site unsold laptops marked destroyed oh of course no unfortunately

when you return something even

if it's brand new the chances of

that item actually making it back to the shelves are depressingly low in modern

shopping you can pretty reasonably think of a return

as a long winding drive to the trash

and oh my God what a lot of trash it is in 2023 alone

we sent over 8 billion pounds of returns to the landfill that's approximately 1

pound for every seagull in this Getty Images clip of a landfill now you

might be thinking wow how could trashing billions of dollars of basically new products

possibly be profitable for companies well retailers are doing a sort of deal with

the capitalism devil here everyone else offers free returns

so they offer it too

but since it's expensive

and complicated to actually get a return back to the shelves they mostly just

don't and as you can imagine this is costly

so businesses slash their production

and labor costs and

or just bump up their prices to account for refunding nearly 15% of everything

Americans purchase in an attempt to get back some of the money that's getting

thrown away with returns retail ERS have begun selling their returned items for pennies

on the dollar to what is known

as a bulk item Liquidator wow listen to this baby purr with companies trashing

billions of dollars worth of merchandise every single year an interesting phenomenon has occurred

a gigantic network of aftermarket Liquidators has sprung up to try to resell some

of that returned merchandise rather than letting it go to the dump the amount

of wasted value is

so enormous that liquidation makes money simply by tossing returns into Giant open to

cardboard boxes and then selling them off to the highest bidder

or if you're in the area you can drop by

and buy a mystery box for yourself it's a great way to spend an

afternoon or if you're a content creator it's a really fun way to make

some unhinged side hustle grind culture videos about selling returns

as a cool way to make some cash you can buy people's Amazon returns

for super cheap the treasure box ended up being $993 of stuff you're chicking

but that's not my style brother I make punishingly long videos full of context

that no one asked for 8% 10% 20% 20 to 30% 40% 75% 20%

but I'm not a robot okay I understand the appeal of those kinds of

videos they're fun I get it

and as an olive branch to people who've been trying to get me to

make more fun videos I'm bringing in the a team that's right the big

guns I'm talking about internet historian Danny Gonzalez hey thanks for having me Ry

thank you for crouching behind

that box for way longer than I think you thought you were going to

yeah my legs hurt we're in a giant Liquidation Center what's your first impression

of the place uh there's definitely a lot more birds living in here than

I would have thought there are an alarming amount of birds in the Rapters

I will check with the manager

but I don't think those are for sale

but if they are you're going home with a whole pallet full of birds

today I'm just struck by the sheer sense of mystery

so many possibilities in these unopened like nondescript boxes there could be anything in

these boxes not just a Queens siiz bed top sheet mhm

or a giant piece of foam that's actually mine I left

that here earlier s all right let's take a look at the Colossal amount

of waste that is created by online shopping by getting Dany his very own

palette of other people's basically new return stuff now Danny what's your strategy for

hunting down one of these palletes I'm hoping to find a palette

that I can rehome each individual item to find it a forever home

but if I'm doing all this work I'd also like to make a couple

bucks while I'm at it

as well you should it's your right

as an American all right Danny what God Bless America I'm not sure

if we have the rights to sing

that song but go ahead all right why don't you uh take a look

around and see what there is to see

and let's pop this thing off hi I'm Raley Williams a guy with a

climate science and policy degree

and a brand new friend

and this is a video about the mountain of trash that's created from free

returns featuring Danny Gonzalez welcome to climate town now there was a time

when returns were really very simple you would buy a hammer from the General

Store only to remember

that you already had a hammer

and since you're not some kind of two Hammer owning millionaire you march right

back to that store look the shopkeeper dead in the face

and tell them sir I do not want your Hammer anymore

and they'd refund you

then they'd take the hammer walk at 10 ft to the Hammer shelf

and another customer could come by

and buy your Hammer instead

and that was basic basically the process at the original JC Penny stores a

generous returns policy from a guy named James cash peny in a store

that looked like this

and it basically went on like

that for decades until the Glorious invent the Glorious invention of invention of the

internet You've Got Mail yes the internet may have been criminally slow

and constantly getting disconnected

but retailers immediately saw the potential in online sh shopping

but how do you get people to buy stuff without seeing it first sure

you can get some absolute suckers to buy things sight unseen

but shoes no shoes you need to feel shoes you need to try on

shoes you need to measure perfectly by cramming your foot into this metal thing

shoes simply must be bought in person

and it was this kind of thinking

that almost doomed the idea of Zappos

but zapo founder Nick swinburn had a really good card up his sleeve not

a ace that's too obvious a Jack the Jack of free returns absolutely free

no questions asked can I return it next month your month how about a

year 365 days free returns

and we won't ask you why experience true shopping the zapo way a generous

return policy got my gear

and my kick the best z a.com

so now instead of trying on different shoes in the store

and putting the ones

that don't fit back on the Shelf they'll just ship you

as many shoes as you could possibly imagine

and then you just return the shoes

that you don't want

and the reason we're talking about it is

because this idea worked really well zaposlitev was disappearing into the Vortex of free

returns they were also getting blasted by the twin guns of free shipping

and having to rent out massive warehouses to store the millions of shoes including

this little green alien shoe from

when the little guy jumped over the big guy he used back up

but this is the big Tech year a baby we don't give a about

money we want growth Jackson

so a I still can't believe

that sentence leads to this guy

but it does you can hear him coming a mile away

as long as we're going to be watching back clips of Jeff Bezos let's

do this thing right okay Danny we found some footage of American heartthrob Jeff

Bezos from a little over 20 years ago

and I just feel like I want to get your perspective on who is

arguably America's most successful citizen yeah I would love to see this footage you

know I know that he today is America's heartthrob obviously going around on Yachts

looking so damn strong jacked out of his mind

and I'm sure that TW 20 years ago he's probably doing much of the

same you'd imagine he'd be even more in his prime

when he was just coming up

so let's check it out do you think you could recreate

that laugh I feel like a good imitation of it has to get the

sound right but you also have to get like the crazed look in his

eyes right wow that was really really good I think my net worth just

Rose by $100 million no I didn't have it I didn't have the you

got poorer when that happened the 35-year-old founder

and CEO of Amazon 35 in

that wow that's just 5 years older than me

and he's already worth they said millions of dollars that's crazy you could get

there you could get there all you got to do is found a groundbreaking

company that utilizes a new burgeoning technology to undercut all your competitors okay um

yeah if you if all of you guys are cool with me doing

that just go ahead

and leave a comment down in the comments below smash

that like button if you're cool with Danny taking over commerce for the next

decade or so he saw early on the power of those letters www the

website that they showed was just www. worldwide. web my favorite website dude that's

that was the original Google people would worldwide. web it

if they had a question

so you're driving out here in what '94 was it July of '94 is

when we arrived in Seattle month after I was born July of '94 I

was born on the day of the OJ Simpson murder wait hang the laugh

does kind of come off to me like he's barely holding it together

and you're getting these like little glimpses into his dark

and twisted mind what yeah man this is a kind of a nice look

back at what Amazon Fulfillment centers used to look like kind of like libraries

yeah like shelves where a real human being could reach the top of it

a real human being could see from one wall to the other all the

way across I don't see any bottles of piss anywhere actually This was oh

that's just for sale that's just for sale Amazon fired 150 people in January

2% of its Workforce to cut down on costs last year a few employees

complained publicly in a Washington Post article about what they said is excessive overtime

and low pay at Amazon okay

so oh my friends it's going to get

so much worse than

that your response to uh to

that sweat shop accusation well it's he suddenly seems a lot more pissed the

interviewer yeah the whole time he's been laughing along with them

and then he's like

so what the is going on with

that what we're trying to do isn't easy

and it's not for everybody that's for sure

and look the money is not for everyone either the money is for me

smile terrible oh man anything gets this guy he just took a picture in

his cack tell me what the joke is smile took a picture of a

guy what is the comedy there now I have part of your soul okay

the last thing I wanted to show you you know what's not to love

you order the groceries online

and we deliver them to your door what is the joke there he just

described his business I kind of sort of work for you

so I'm not eager to ask question barely ever

so barely I've never heard

that combination kind of nice I pay all of my employees ever

so barely I think I've grown a bit of a greater appreciation for the

guy you know now I know a little bit of his history now I

know that he always laughed like

that it makes sense

that he would laugh like a 200 billionaire

because he is a 200 billionaire

but before you know in

that first video he only had like what a billion dollars yeah 6 billion

tops and he still left like

that so it's just kind of interesting to see thanks

so much Danny let's get back to 2009

when Jeff bezos's nation state Amazon purchased zapo for a little less than a

billion dollars which honestly doesn't sound like

that much considering Zappos was selling more than a billion dollars of shoes every

year but again free returns the practice went mainstream fellow hot corporations Target

and Walmart established their own free returns policies to keep up

and soon virtually every major online retailer from the 2010s got sucked in right

along with them and just like they won't shop at a store

that doesn't have them the free returns stayed for online businesses this meant eating

on returns so they could also eat the delicious

and 100% shipfree sandwich of an army of online consumers clicking

that buy button with Reckless abandon

and as you may have guessed America embraced free returns like Lenny from of

M men embraced Animals by 2023 something like 39% of consumers returned an online

purchase at least once a month habitual return beh behaviors emerged like bracketing where

customers purposely order multiple sizes of the same item

and then return the ones

that don't fit and wardrobing where they buy an item wear it

and then return it

and just like that the cost of free returns was spiraling out of control

and if you combine all those returns with the free shipping

that got that stuff to you in the first place you suddenly have an

insane amount of packages moving around the country on big big trucks UPS now

delivers 2 billion more domestic packages than it did did in the year 2000

and in that same time frame the United States Postal Service tripled its package

deliveries and then there's Amazon who only started delivering their own packages in 2018

and now they deliver more packages than either UPS

or FedEx in 6 years UPS has been around for 117 years

and Amazon beat it in six no I didn't want it bad enough

and while today's customers are still treating returns like bringing a Hammer back to

James cash Penny today's sellers are living an extremely different reality for starters

when you return something it does not go back to the store yeah

when you slap a return label on a basketball

or a video game

or a pair of pants

that didn't fit because actual quote from my tailor you got a big butt

man that item is almost never addressed to the place

that you bought it from even

if you physically take a return back to the brick

and mortar store it almost certainly gets added to a big pile of other

returns in the back room

and when that pile gets big enough it gets put in a truck

and driven to meet up with its other return friends it may even make

two or three more trips on trucks until all the returns in the region

gather at what's known

as a return center picture a massive Warehouse with low ceilings actually you know

what don't picture it CNBC did a huge story on this here's what it

looks like return centers are packed to the absolute gills with the millions of

items that people like you

and me send back for a full refund now I want to stress

that there's not a ton of good statistical information about returns for reasons

that will become clear companies don't really like to advertise how they move returned

items around but don't worry cuz the information

that is available is extremely depressing let's start with the purpose of a return

center it's not to get each item safely back to the cell you bought

it from the job of a return center is to assess how valuable each

item actually is and

then sort them all into five basic categories Li

if reselling the return isn't going to be worth the shipping

and labor cost it would require to get it back to the store

or back to the warehouse

then it throw it away we'll just make a whole new one from scratch

with about $740 billion in returned items every year the fraction

that gets sent to the dump is hard to pin down

but experts put it somewhere between 10%

and 25% % of all returned items

and it's probably way higher than

that for apparel and

that sucks an Amazon employee SL whistleblower SL certified cool dude for Life captured

some incredibly shaky hidden camera footage from inside an Amazon warehouse we get to

witness unsold laptops being marked for Destruction boxes full of electronics like cordless drills

and headphones getting carded off to a landfill

and even a manager spreadsheet noting more than 124,000 items getting destroyed in a

single week sometimes companies will try to avoid dumping returns by shredding them

and seeing if they can recycle some of the scraps

or diverting them to what is known

as energy recovery where they light the Returns on fire to generate electricity

and remember this is tens of billions of dollars of returns getting trashed every

single year just in the US

because it was unprofitable

or too much of a hassle to try to get them back into circulation

absolutely brutal moving right along to category too it

when a return is too expensive to deal with

but they don't want to just throw it away sellers can choose to donate

it to a charitable organization it's hard to pin down exactly what percent of

returns are donated but in 2022 Amazon hit the 100 million returned items donated

Mark so it's not nothing

but before you go padding these Noble Heroes on the back just remember

that donating something does not mean it'll get used this is an over production

problem which means thrift stores are increasingly swamped with lowquality donations

so returns still manage to find their way to the landfill after taking a

couple extra trips on a truck now I'm not saying donations are bad please

keep donating just know

that online retailers sending Goodwill the mountain of stuff

that they deemed worthless is probably not a sustainable solution by itself moving right

along to category three back to the sh okay

if a return is a pris unopened basically in new condition item it can

sometimes be resold as new

but as you can probably guess from the amount of qualifiers I had to

add to the word item reselling is new is pretty rare every company has

their own way of determining

if an item is new

or not but according to this list of seven different industry standards five classifying

item is used if the package has been opened at all apparently companies would

rather send a 100 innocent returns to a landfill than let one guilty return

go to a customer in an incredible twist Amazon is actually better than a

lot of other companies at reselling an item is new

because they control so many elements of the supply chain

but still this is a rarity in returns

which brings us to we have it

if an item is in great condition

but not pristine in the package it can get sent back to the warehouse

for rehabilitation and restocking it's very category dependent

but if we're talking about high-end clothing roughly 70% of the time return can

be dry cleaned and resold

as new if we're talking about electronics

that number is more like 30% same goes for HomeGoods to their credit sellers

are taking advantage of the open box discount where they mark down the price

and resell the item

as refurbished before we started researching for this video I kind of assumed

that almost all returns were rehabed

and reshelved but unfortunately

that is not the case

which brings us to the final category the Liquidation Center

when companies do the math

and they realize it's not going to be profitable for them to resell a

returned item but they still want to make a little bit of money on

it they can choose to sell

that item to a liquidator Liquidators will buy it for pennies on the dollar

pay to truck them from the return center to a liquidator Warehouse like this

one then try to sell

or auction off huge pallets of returns for slightly more Pennies on the dollar

sometimes those Market places are online like liquidation.com Walmart liquidations

or amazing bargains USA

but sometimes they'll just let regular ass people show up

and roll the dice on a random pallet of returns regular people like Danny

Gonzalez regular sorry extraordinary what have you found

so far in this liquidation center

so there's a few different levels of product palettes I would say you've got

the Amazon mystery boxes

which are totally closed off total mystery I have no idea what's in those

boxes it could be anything

and it's tantalizing you you're leaning towards the mystery box I'm a tantalized

then you've got one level down a little bit of mystery those boxes you

can kind of see like the top layer of stuff

so you can get a sense of what might be in the rest of

the box but it could be anything there could be Tom Cruz from the

movie Collateral waiting to put two in your head

and one in your throat yeah I was going to say two in the

head one in the throat maybe two in the one in the eye

but it's going to be bullets it's going to be in you now you

are holding what looks like a tiny castle for a baby yeah I think

that these are for fish bowls

so this is another type of pette that's just like one item multiplied by

140 if I'm not mistaken this is a brand new fish Castle I think

so never touched by human hands maybe lightly touched by fish hands now I'm

noticing this is $600 have you seen other prices uh

and have you been surprised by any of the prices you've seen here I

saw a box over there

that looked like I don't know maybe like a million flip-flops

that was like $2 $300

so that seems like a pretty good deal that's an incredible deal they pay

you to take those flip-flops off their hands on their feet all right are

there any pallets that you are immediately not going to be selecting here today

oh yeah um this one okay uh I think

that I want to go for a palette

that has a decent amount of variety

if I'm trying to sell these

and make a profit I'd really be betting all of my money on one

product if I get some more variety

then maybe some items won't do

as well but some items might

so I'm hedging my bets a little bit better with one of those boxes

okay Danny you know the rules okay we can only afford to buy one

pallet here so you got to Choose Wisely

but you are of course the hometown hero I think this building is where

you went to high school is

that correct that's right go boxes go boxes baby you go out there

and do some fun on camera Antics

and I'll do what I do best we is tell you a little bit

more about the context of liquidations there's a lot of different ways an item

could find itself in one of these boxes rather than on the original shelf

or in the dump

but the original retail value is a major factor it might make sense to

run that $2,000 laptop back through the entire reverse supply chain

but those same shipping

and handling costs could be too high for a $25 blender

so we're going to find a lot of new items with lower price tags

ending up in these boxes Danny's also going to be running into a lot

of new clothing here since fashion trends change

so quickly clothing is basically the fruits

and vegetables of the return World an item can be in transit

or sitting in a return center for a couple of weeks

or a couple of months before the clothing even has a chance of getting

back to the shelves it could be out of fashion

or just out of season

because clothing is made for next to nothing it's almost always cheaper to sell

your returns to a liquidator

and make a completely new shirt from scratch than it is to ship an

existing shirt back to the factory

and we've already done two videos about fast fashion

so I'm not going to belabor

that point again but just know

that a lot of new clothing ends up in places like this

or places like cut to landfill

and it's not just clothing

and cheaper returns items

that retail for a lot more money can also find themselves in pallets for

a variety of reasons due to the sheer volume of items

that return centers receive employees get maybe a minute per item

which means if a razor Scooter's got a scuffed Tire

or a pair of shoes has had the laces undone

or an electronic has been removed from its box at all it might find

itself in one of these pallets the point is a lot of this stuff

should be able to be sold for almost full value

but because there's not a better system in place to reclaim these returns basically

new items are getting packaged into mystery boxes

and then sold to people who may end up throwing the majority of the

contents away if they can't end up reselling the items themselves

and we're back folks

and Danny you've had a chance to look at all these palletes are you

ready to make a final ision you know there's a lot of really interesting

stuff here so it's been really tough

but I think I've narrowed it down what I'm basing this off of is

just kind of the vibe of the palette

and the potential like what how are these boxes shaped you know like what

could this be based on the shape of this box uh maybe like a

heavy yoga mat could be a heavy yoga mat could be maybe uh like

a vanilla long Johan oh it's you think this is a perishable food item

could be like a big donut it could it could could be a big

donut and that's why you don't want you say it like

that you don't think it could be a vanilla long do you I was

trying to yes and you

but I really didn't believe it was going to be a big donut this

is not a big donut what's

that yeah so take a look at this this is a telescope box

and it by the looks of it it looks like a pretty fun telescope

honestly if you mean see the moon nearly

as good as this picture implies let's buy this right now that's right I've

never even seen the moon this is an Amazon return right

and sometimes you return Amazon returns in the packaging they came in

but sometimes you've destroyed the Amazon Packaging you're

so excited you rip it open like it's Christmas that's right

so this could be a telescope okay

but it could also be just some random junk

that some guy got from Amazon

and then he just put in his telescope box

that he already had laying around it could be a vanilla Long John could

be a bomb so we don't want this one the box I'm actually going

with is down here

but you'll notice along the way there's like a lot of a lot of

bedding products I don't know what that's about it seems like people return a

lot of bedding when you buy

and you return it ain't nobody using

that beding again not rolling the dice on

that yeah cuz it's like I don't know

if you have bed bugs I don't know

if you have leprosy yeah

and you do I got both of them okay the leprosy is attacking the

bed bug so it's kind of keeping itself at Bay right now

but I could I'm a ticking time much like 30% of these boxes

but I think this is the box I'm going to go with right here

okay and what what led you to this decision I like the variety of

box shapes m take a look at this one I don't know what could

be in here but I'm interested to find out it could be a picture

frame and I would want to know what the picture is what

if it's a picture of you

that would be like

so scary that would be a pretty awesome thing for us to do to

like put this picture of you in here that'd be a crazy prank yeah

are you guys becoming a prank channel oh yeah we're pivoting hard okay sick

and then there's some stuff you know there's clues of what might be in

here there's a chewy box oh okay you know the pet food pet toy

company or not that it could not be

that too but either way I'm going to give whatever's in there to my

dog this feels like a box that's got two poster frames in it

and I can even see actually see life hack a clue we can we

can tear open all the kind of bite the edge of the Box until

you can see what's inside you can taste what's inside

and then what's this totally up box yeah this one is an enigma to

me it is crushed it is light like there's only one small item in

here and yet if you were to shake it around give it a little

jostle nothing I heard a little something I shake it really hard I'm super

strong maybe there's like an air pouch in there m

or maybe it's taped to one side like some kind of bomb would Jesus

Christ you ready to lock this in brother let's lock it in Jesus all

right here we are at Danny's house with a pallet full of mystery items

you just hear like a thousand glasses shatter what's your strategy of getting this

back out into the world I'm thinking

if I want to find these things a forever home I'm going to just

need to get each individual product in front of

as many eyeballs as possible

so I'm talking put it on Facebook Marketplace get them listed on eBay I

don't care what nefarious purposes they have with these products just get them off

my hands and get money back into the my the hands even

if there's like bombs

and guns we'll sell them to the highest bidder even

if that's Al-Qaeda but look we're only in Chicago for another 24 hours I've

genuinely just like thrown the Hot Potato of this job at Danny

and now I'm leaving yeah I'm uh actually for the first time really kind

of scared and not looking forward to this at all

so all that's going to be over on Danny's YouTube channel go ahead

and visit that it's Danny Gonzalez on YouTube

and he'll have the pallet video unboxing redistribution

and also like a thousand other fantastic videos some of my favorite videos on

the internet are Danny Gonzalez videos

and yes I'm including grap stomp lady

so don't even ask

but look unboxing is fun okay

and I've been promising to have a little more fun in these videos

so in the interest of fun we got to at least open something in

this video right that's right

and I've got a creative solution for us I went online to a liquidation

company called liquidation.com where they'll sell you a box of absolutely random returned items

for like 150 bucks it's basically a mystery box

and when I say basically a mystery box

that was the literal description of the item what's inside these packages is unknown

because they have not been open to examine the content

so as a big thank you to Danny for taking time out of his

day to do a video about reverse leg Logistics I got him one of

these mystery boxes so thank you

so much this is for me oh yeah

so you personally and morally stand behind every single item in this box that's

right and not only

that but I thought you would need it let's get into it baby ooh

wow more boxes I guess I should have known this I assumed it was

just going to be full of loose items it's just all boxes you want

to do the honors of slicing

that bad boy open what did you get me wow it's a big purple

rug wow this really soft actually we could lay this down

and lay some items on it at the very least we're getting some nice

like presentation points for this video

and it is nail clippers ooh those look like a pet nail clippers kind

of extra long Sure Grip handle for ferrets who this long box must be

a fet well I got NBA 2K1 okay for the Xbox 360 do you

have a Xbox no I got rid of it oh okay well this just

so happens to be a CD the ink J Rule is it yeah wait

why is original cover art original back art uh

and then they just wrote jar rule the Inc on it it is poison

oh it's um it's like pet safe uh salt for your dry point this

is great you have pets

and a driveway I literally have this stuff over there I could just put

it over there I'm just going to go put it over there real Qui

put over there whoa oh my God a dog was in this box the

whole time how did he get lost in there can you make an incision

right here please stop flirting with me doctor that's gr's Anatomy I assume that's

how all doctors are I'll take it from here okay where did you go

to medical school a heater space heater these are great moms love these uh

you can actually read the address of the original Shopper right on here

so should we go is it close by what

if we went and redeliver to them okay obviously there was like all these

items in there so we only we only cut together the fun ones

if you are like I got to see more mhm go on over to

Danny's Channel we got the whole we're to unbox this whole goddamn box I'll

scratch that unboxing itch

that you have deep inside your skin

and if for some reason you still have the need to watch more unboxing

we did the whole unedited 40 minute take it'll be a little bit edited

so it might be like 25 to 30 minutes of unboxing this whole thing

uh that'll be on our patreon page the climate Town patreon page

and if that doesn't satisfy your unboxing needs you're honestly sick

and you need to go to the doctor finally a big thank thank you

to Danny for uh for for doing these videos

and you got your video to do I got my video to do

so I'll see you next time yeah now

as much fun as it is to open mystery boxes with my new friend

Danny the fact that you can buy warehouses full of brand new unused items

for dirt cheap is kind of a huge red flag for the way we

do Commerce we have walked our way into a system where it's more profitable

to overproduce a bunch of lowcost items

and then them off

when they don't sell

so companies just do

that and unfortunately the billions of dollars lost to landfills

and liquidation centers is largely being transferred to you yes I'm talking to you

the consumer and brace yourself for some nuclear powered get off myON energy

but one result of over production

and free returns is

that they don't make stuff like they used to yeah profit margins are basically

the only things corporations can about

and a big way sellers are able to trash those returns is

if they use cheaper materials in lower quality Productions

and wow I sound like my dad here

but the proof is in the pudding Furniture used to last decades

and herniate every disc in your back whenever you tried to move it

and now it's mostly made of wood chips glue

and plywood appliances used to be built like a brick sh house

and now they've given way to replaceable lower quality models

that break down sometimes intentionally after only a couple of years

and I know I've said this before

but clothing used to be made from higher quality natural fibers

and now almost everything you put on your body is mostly plastic now I'm

not saying plastic automatically means bad

but the fashion industry is mostly built on overproducing cheap lowquality apparel

that you can throw away after only a handful of wees

and the real kick in our Collective dicks is

that free returns aren't even really free yeah we're losing quality

and in some cases we're also just secretly paying for the return upfront many

companies just add the cost of the return to the price

which means you're actually getting more screwed

if you don't return the item

and we haven't even talked about the climate implications yet

and I'm sure you've already got an intuitive sense

that piles of unused rotting in landfills isn't great for the environment

but this channel is called climate town

so we got to talk about it it's bad folks let's take just the

shipping Logistics of a single return in many cases an item is transported via

a fossil fuel powered truck multiple times between the buyer's home

and the return center

then multiple more times between a return center

and a liquidator and

then even more times after getting purchased CBC News did a fun little James

Bond style investigation which they bought a bunch of items off of Amazon

and then immediately returned them in mint condition except with GPS tracking devices inside

the hidden trackers follow the the items

as they were driven around hundreds of miles they even tracked a brand new

backpack all the way you know what I watched a bunch of clips for

this episode and the CBC investigation was easily the greatest thing I watched

so I got to let them tell you would you buy this I for

sure would like you would buy it from me right now of course okay

so we took one just like this

and just as good condition

and returned it to Amazon

and where do you think Amazon sent it I would love to guess right

here that garbage location across the street that's insane oh my God I'm not

happy I'm I'm just truly shocked by

that so for it to end up in a Waste Management Facility um to

me is truly shocking

and the numbers here are terrifying in 2022 alone reverse logistics company optoro estimates

that returning merchandise in the US had the impact of adding 5.1 million gas

powerered cars to the road

and as bad as it is wasting millions of gallons of gas ubering backpacks

to landfills that's like the least bad part the amount of energy

and raw materials that we are cramming into these items only to wave them

directly into the garbage is staggering remember less than a third of returned electronics

are actually sent back to the shelves

and those little sons of contain plastic made from fossil fuels

and a ton of different Metals including aluminum silver lithium copper

and precious gold they found gold in the hills gold gold B these Metals

need to be mined out of the earth using human labor

and fossil fuel powered equipment transported refined transported again shaped the list goes on

and every step puts more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere researchers studying electronic waste

found a 53% rise in CO2 emissions between 2014

and 2020 and while recycling efforts are underway we're only actually recycling about 20

to 30% globally and even

that is often carried out using methods

that have serious human health

and environmental consequences and speaking of consequences students of Economics will call the unre

regulated waste of free returns an externality

or a cost that's being absorbed by The World At Large communism style instead

of the corporations that are actually making the products

and sure the concept of free returns is an incredible deal for customers a

store that shows up to my house refunds a purchase

and takes it back for free yeah baby sign me up

or or or send a QR code

or whatever just give me the deal of the century

but of course this is America

so if you think you're getting a generous deal from corporations worth trillions of

dollars whose only goal is to make

as much profit as physically possible well I mean

if you watch the entire episode up to this point

and you still think free returns are awesome

and that you'll never pay a price for the insane carbon emissions

and resource depletion and constantly decreasing product quality uh yeah dude I guess take

a break why watch this why don't you check out love is blind I

hear there's a bunch of sociopaths trying to trick each other into getting married

hang on what just too much just a little bit I never thought I

could care for someone

that would bring me into tears

but for the rest of you I'm happy to announce

that we've officially entered the what we're going to do about it section first

off just being aware of how up free returns are is actually a big

step part of the problem here seems to be

that consumers want to believe free returns work

and companies are too afraid to publicize what's actually going on

and this whole we're totally returning it dance actually ends up biting consumers

so next time you go to make a purchase

that doesn't have free returns

that might actually be a good thing it could mean

that the company is not sacrificing quality to pay for the return

and in a rare Switcheroo it seems like buyers

and sellers are actually kind of aligned on this one except for behemoths like

Amazon companies would really love to reduce the amount of returns they're doing according

to one industry report a return on a $100 item costs the company $25

to $30 to cover shipping

and customer service and reverse Logistics they don't really like it either now companies

have started trying to discourage returns by introducing barriers like reducing the return window

or charging for shipping

and look I'm not completely convinced they won't just cut free returns

and then keep producing cheap crap

but at least now goodfaith sellers won't have to light 15%

or more of their revenue on fire even Amazon has begun charging a dollar

for returns that ship through ups

but that may have more to do with trying to take down a competitor

and also they're not coming to the rescue they're the ones

that did this to us that's really cool

and I don't know

when you're actually watching this video

but we're dropping it around the holidays cuz that's like the Super Bowl of

returns the national retail Federation estimated us Shoppers return turned over $170 billion in

Holiday merchandise in 2021

and UPS alone ships almost 3 million returns per day in the holiday aftermath

it's insane and one thing you personally can do to not be part of

the problem is to just be mindful of what you buy

and return another thing everyone can do is buy secondhand give this dining room

chair a second life

while simultaneously paying a fraction of the price

and sending a really Choice market signal

that you don't need to buy a bunch of new all the time

and if you're in Brooklyn please come on down to the big reuse it's

my favorite thrift store in the entire world great selection

and they let us shoot this video here actually they let us use their

composting sites for the food waste video you know what big reuse 10 out

of 10 no notes

and if you can afford The Upfront cost of a new highquality item that's

also a reasonable choice just know it might take some research just

because something is expensive does not mean it's wellmade

or that the workers were paid a living wage sometimes it's just expensive

because corporations you know really love money on the policy side France passed an

anti-waste law in 2020 targeting waste promoting reuse

and trying to eliminate single-use Plastics

and that's been vaguely positive way to go France

and while the US has struggled with this on the federal level our friends

at climate change makers have put together a Playbook with step-by-step instructions you can

follow to do something about this yourself Link in the bio

and finally we can put a little pressure on companies by talking openly

and honestly about what a free return really means this may be you talking

to your friends and family

or getting loud about it online

or if you're someone who works at a major retailer

and you're trashing free returns Blow

That Whistle oh yeah we're officially endorsing snitching on major corporations in fact

if you're a whistleblower who comes forward

because of this video you get a pizza party that's right baby I'm buying

for you and up to 20 of your friends maybe here maybe not here

if it doesn't make geographical sense I get it any pizza parlor in your

neighborhood it's on me that's an official climate Town promise provided I check with

my lawyer and it's not illegal

and at this point you might be wondering what happened to Danny we missed

that guy we need closure well first of all let me just say

that we are not anti- Liquidation Center here at climate town

but let's not confuse what a Liquidation Center is it is a Band-Aid on

the head wound that is online shopping waste

and it's a multi-million dollar industry

because there's actual value being disposed of

but if you're tempted to think of liquidation

as the perfect solution let's check back in with Danny to see how it

went thanks for asking guys it was awful

if you've ever tried to sell anything on Facebook Marketplace you know it can

be kind of frustrating dealing with all of the messages people trying to undercut

you scam you trying to negotiate some kind of public Meetup

so that you don't get kidnapped

or murdered at your own house well imagine doing

that for 34 items at the same time

and mind you these are 34 items

that someone already decided they didn't want don't get me wrong it wasn't all

junk there was some decent stuff in the box there were rugs

that seemed like they hadn't been used at all there was this cool AI

bird feater but then there was broken stuff like a cure egg

and a hedge trimmer toy

that both just didn't do anything

and then there was stuff

that like I didn't even know what it was

when I first unboxed it

so like how am I supposed to sell something on Facebook Marketplace I don't

even know what it is

if I had to do this all again I could probably do it a

little bit more efficiently

if I had like a better storage solution

and maybe I could kind of figure out a way where I don't have

to put every item up on Facebook I could have people come to me

and there were certain hours where people knew they could come every day

and you might notice I'm just describing a store this would be better

if I was just a store doing this

as just one guy

as a side hustle I was hoping I would feel like I'm solving the

problem you know I'm getting rid of all this junk

but it was really hard

and I'm not going to do it again

and at the end of it all I only made $23 back to you

wow thank you so much Danny

and just for the record I had no idea how big of a pain

in the ass that was about to be for you I thought it was

going to be like we got you a box of pool noodles

and Venetian blinds why don't you have a nice fun wacky garage sale

that is my bad

and if you want to see just how deep the rabbit hole goes check

out the video over on Danny's Channel

as he slowly descends into madness trying to liquidate the box of stuff we

got it's a fantastic video

but more importantly it was clearly a lot of work

and so Danny I hereby offer you this coupon good for one extremely annoying

task that I will do on your behalf no expiration date

but you know what's better than buying a bunch of cheap crap online nebula

nebula is an independent streaming service that's Creator owned

and they make highquality original content without having to cater to an all powerful

algorithm I just watched a nebula original game show called The Ghetto away where

six contestants drove cross country doing challenges to win a cash prize

while also trying to figure out

which one of them was the snitch

and then they done Twisted it by secretly making everyone the snitch resulting in

all six contestants playing 4D chess against each other for five episodes

and it's seriously so good

and the best part is

that the getaway contestants are also nebula creators

which means you can watch their original videos along with a ton of other

Heavy Hitters like legal eagle philosophy tube H bomber the list is out of

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so you know pretty cool

so why don't you go see

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and host of the hit series good work Dan Tumi can outsmart the five

other snitches in the getaway

or take a trip inside the brain of Simon Clark

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add and sponsor free plus they now have guest passes

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so use the link nebula.com do yourself a favor it's the deal of the

century wow we did it congratulations thank you

so much for watching feel free to like

And subscribe and if you want to support the channel the best way to

do that is through our patreon page page we got a bunch of stuff

on there including the full Dany unboxing clip plus a bunch of other cut

footage and behind the scenes you get access to the climate Town landline where

you can actually call in it's like call in your favorite pizza restaurant

and I'm hearing people don't do

that anymore well they used to do it

and it was pretty fun we got clips from our live show you know

we just got a whole lot of stuff

and subscribing to the patreon also has the added benefit of helping keep the

channel afloat so thank you a million times in advance we've also got t-shirts

made by a company called TS designs in North Carolina the shirts are entirely

made in the Carolinas with a short

and completely trackable supply chain from the cotton farmer to The Cutting

and sewing to the printing

and dying honestly you might already have plenty of shirts

and that's good great even

but if you're looking for a nice shirt to wear I think these are

pretty great shirts fully cotton no plastic featuring art from margarite Cutler

and made by people who are actually paid a decent wage right here in

the US and if you're looking to make your own shirts let me suggest

TM designs love those guys

and also our partners ethics merch links down below

and we just wanted to give a quick shout out to nice find wholesale

if you're in the Chicagoland area

and you're looking for a liquidation wholesaler this is the spot look at how

many boxes they have look at all the neat stuff we climbed around all

over the place we got our sticky little fingerprints on the boxes Raleigh got

stuck inside one for hours could find they find me I wasn't making a

sound though for the first time ever I felt free yeah must

and I owe it to nice fine wholesalers

and they've got a YouTube page

so check out their YouTube page give them a like

and a subscribe for all your liquidation wholesale needs check out nice find wholesale

and of course thank you

so much to The Experts

and reverse Logistics gurus we talk to

while making this episode I'm talking about Christian pillar from pollen returns Brandon dupy

a super duper guy

and the owner of backtrack I'm talking about Jordan McBain from McBain recoveries

and I'm talking about Danny Gonzalez from thank you

so much and if you're still starving for Content we got a newsletter baby

it's written by climate Town writer director Matt Nelson

and me that's a lot like these episodes except written out

and then sent to you in your email address

and of course we got a great podcast called the climate deniers Playbook featuring

me and my childhood friend/ Daily Show writer Nicole Conlin

and executive produced by Ben bolt we put an insane amount of work into

every single episode it's really quite something

so I encourage you to check check it out

if you feel like it all right that's actually the end of the whole

thing links in the bio to everything

and as always okay okay I have not tried marijuana uh I have never

used it at any time did you hear

that goodbye