I used to work at Barnes & Noble. During peak retail times publishers would
send us extra copies of books thought to be in higher demand in the "mass
market" format - that's the smaller size paperbacks. After said peak season
ended and we had leftovers, the cover would be torn off and sent back to the
publisher who would give the company credit for what they didn't sell. The
staff were allowed to take 1 or 2 titles w/o their front covers home, but
the rest were torn up into small sections of book and thrown in the
dumpster! Surely those could have been donated to a charity organization or
something. I always hated that.

Although, I'm sure a return of a book w/o a cover would not have been
allowed, I wouldn't have been surprised to see someone go through our
dumpster and try it. We had a guy one time who collected receipts people
had thrown away from the trash can outside the front of the store. He went
down the street to Kinko's who happened to have VERY similar paper as our
receipt paper. He cut the receipts up and pasted them together into one big
receipt and copied it. The Kinko's manager thought that was mighty
suspicious and called us at the store to let us know what to watch for.
Sure enough, this guy comes into our store, picks the books we had in stock
that were on the receipt, off of our shelves and went up to the cashier to
ask for a refund. He ran away when we told him we knew what he had done.

I know that doesn't apply to the WalMart thing, but just reminded me of my
little stories. I agree that it seems awfully wasteful of WalMart to just
toss them and would seem harmless to let people take them for free if they
were just going in the dumpster.

Lydia


"Roy" wrote in message
...
Was at Wal MArt today and happened to see a heap of preformed ponds
setting on a pallet outside the garden section. (15 total preformed)
I looked at them and there were two sizes / shapes, both relatively
large in size, but no price on them..I inquired inside on how much
they were, (actually hoping they may be discounted for clearance) and
no one inside could tell me what the story was, so they called
management. Management came and I asked about the preformed ponds
outside and how much they were. I was promptly told they were not for
sale and were to be trashed.....and then.........She promptly
reminded the assocate there to make sure they were cut in two before
they got thrown in the large construction dumpster out
back...........

Only in America.......where excess bountiful materials and goods are
trashed before selling.
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