When one retail worker clocked in for another weekend shift, they didn't expect to be staring down a wall of cardboard. By Sunday night, their store had collected six towering pallets of Amazon returns.
"I work at a store that accepts Amazon returns and this is just from the weekend," they wrote on Reddit. "Six full pallets of returns that will more than likely go to the landfills. Sorry for the crappy photo. I had to take a screenshot of the Snapchat I sent to the people in my life that still use Amazon very regularly in hopes to sway them a little."
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The image triggered thousands of upvotes and an avalanche of comments, many focusing on how easy returns have made over-consumption invisible. "With how easy returns can be, you essentially have the option to ‘try it on in the store,' but instead of leaving it on a hook for the employee to grab, you don't have to go to the store at all. You can just send it back and forth across the entire planet. It's just late-stage chronic materialism, and no, it doesn't make sense," one commenter said.
The original poster agreed, pointing out the carbon footprint. "It gets shipped from China, then onto a plane, then a truck, then a smaller truck to your door, then you get in your car and drive it to the store to return, then another truck picks up those returns, then more trucks to whatever it goes from there. So many fossil fuels being used!!"
Others chimed in with their own experiences working the returns counter. A former UPS employee recalled that the surge since the pandemic was "unsustainable," adding, "The worst part is most of it ends in a landfill — not all of it — but most. That job was soul crushing. People would admit to us they overbought to try on and return what they didn't like… dirty shoes and clothes, used and gross kitchen appliances."
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Workers say the human side of the business is often as grim as the environmental one. "It's disgusting just the volume of how much people are returning, not to mention the awful attitudes most Amazon return customers have," one wrote. "They don't even look at you when they bring in returns. Just shove the code in your face like you're not even human."
Consumers see the system differently, sometimes even gaming it. One described ordering a second item just to return the first after a price drop: "All to save literally $1. And it doesn't cost me anything as a consumer in extra shipping fees, but a non-zero cost to Amazon and the planet."
Others defended shoppers who say they don't have a choice. With fewer options in physical stores, online returns can feel unavoidable. "There are hardly any maternity clothes in stores anymore," one person explained. "If you have a different body shape: curvy pants only stocked online. And of course, because you can't try them on, you don't actually know they'll fit and you might have to return or exchange them."
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So what actually happens after all these boxes pile up? Amazon says returned goods are inspected at processing centers, resold if possible, or donated and recycled.
But other reporting tells a starkly messier story.
Third-party Amazon sellers told CNBC that roughly one-third of returns ultimately get thrown away. "Somebody has to pay for that," said Micah Clausen, a home-goods seller, noting the cost comes out of either Amazon or the seller's bottom line and inevitably drives prices higher.
Digging deeper, The New Yorker lays out how the reverse‑logistics industry really works. Returned items go through triage—and if packaging is even slightly compromised, they don't get restocked. More often than not, they're sent to liquidators in bulk, refurbished as needed, or shredded and sent to landfills or incinerators. "It's minimal," admitted one of Amazon's own returns managers, about how many items actually make it back as ‘new.'
The contradiction is hard to ignore. To shoppers, Amazon's return policy feels like a perk that removes risk. For workers, it's a grind of endless boxes and thankless customers.
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Image: Shutterstock
