British luxury fashion brand Burberry just burnt their clothes, accessories, cosmetics worth €32 million to keep them from being stolen or sold at discounted rates. There’s nothing left and burnt nearly everything from last year that they weren’t able to sell. The brand claims that they have used eco-friendly practices while destroying these clothes and the energy created from the burning was captured, making it environmentally friendly.
That said, this is not the first time a brand blew its merch up in smoke to preserve their intellectual property and prevent illegal counterfeiting. A company spokesperson said: “Burberry has careful processes in place to minimize the amount of excess stock we produce. On the occasions when the disposal of products is necessary, we do so in a responsible manner and we continue to seek ways to reduce and revalue our waste.”
But social media is still unhappy with it for a lot of reasons. Meanwhile, the debate rages on online and here are some reactions that stick out:
£28.6m worth of clothes destroyed by Burberry, including jumpers and coats.
In the year we had the coldest winter on record and an ever-growing homelessness crisis – surely giving the clothes to charities or shelter would have crossed someone’s mind?
— Dominic McGregor (@DominicMcGregor) July 19, 2018
I had no idea this happened and it seems stunningly wasteful. @Burberry burned millions of dollars of clothes it didn’t sell to “minimise the amount of excess stock we produce.”https://t.co/HiRhTjXhGv
— Tom Namako (@TomNamako) July 19, 2018
Perfume waste is a thing. “As Coty would be making new stock, Burberry had to dispose of £10m worth of old products – largely perfume.” https://t.co/6sgw3mtPgl
— Cathy Erway (@cathyerway) July 19, 2018
Burning knowing there’s people cold to death on the streets…wow #burberryforthehomeless
— Clavero (@ClaveroArg) July 19, 2018
completely and utterly lost my respect for burberry for destroying perfectly good clothes that could be donated to people in need. this reminds me of abercrombie & fitch/hollister doing the same. thinking they’re that good that people in need “shouldn’t wear it”+just dump it smh.
— ???????????????????????????????? ???? (@racksanda) July 19, 2018
