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What A Waste!

What A Waste! - Hi everyone! - Last Sunday after we had filled our shopping cart at Walmart, we were waiting in line to check out. As we were standing there, my husband noticed a package of cheese on the candy shelf. It didn't take long and we spotted various different foods lying around in baskets, on shelves and in spots where they simply didn't belong. When it was finally our turn to get our products scanned, we addressed that issue and asked if those misplaced items were going to be put back again for sale. The cashier shook her head and pointed to a cart behind her which was filled about two thirds. She explained that all those packages, mostly edibles had been returned within her shift only. That got us both quite curious, so we asked her again whether all of that was going to end up back on the food shelves and in the coolers. She denied again saying that whatever is "returned", even if this paradoxically means that certain products won't make it past the cash register, ends up in the garbage. Perfectly fine and still vacuum sealed packages are thrown into the trash just because none of the Walmart staff wants to be bothered bringing all those exiled foods back in a reasonably timely fashion so they could technically still be sold. This upset me quite a bit, but what got me twisted more than anything else was the actual reason why so many edible products  were so carelessly abandoned that day. Food stamps and social security had just been given out Friday before, and now people went on grocery shopping binges picking anything they wanted. As they realized that their contingent exceeded their food stamp budget, they just decided to leave whatever was too much behind. We all have to work with a fixed budget one way or another and therefore keep track of how much of what we can in fact purchase, right? Have some food stampers lost concept of how much they can get for their monthly state subsidies or even thrown all of their basic mathematical skills over board? Perhaps ignorance and indifference allow for a random and countless selection of items because it's just not their own hard earned money they're spending. And speaking of ignorance and indifference, this must be generally contagious and quite fast- spreading since Walmart doesn't seem to mind in the least to proverbially let good products go to waste just like that. "If I were the Walmart manager here, I'd have a massive fit", my husband stated, and I could only agree. As long as there is apparently enough time for the obviously still somewhat underwhelmed staff loitering around in the aisles and chit- chatting to one another, I'd strongly suggest to make it mandatory for them to regularly patrol the cash register area and collect and stick "last minute returned" foods in small coolers which should be put up front. This way the staff would make sure those products are kept refrigerated instead of stupidly disposing them when nothing whatsoever is wrong. There are several parts in the world, the US included by the way that are so poverty- stricken that people still die of starvation by the thousands every day.
Knowing now that wrongly placed foods are just carelessly dumped makes me sick to my stomach! Why not simply rate products like these as second- class ones and give them away to folks that would give an arm and a leg to receive food gifts? What a society of hypocrites we are! On the one hand, we create food banks linked to partially absolutely commendable challenges such as the one where every single pound of personal weight- loss contributes to one pound plus in food donations, but on the other hand, we just accept the fact that qualitatively good foods are thrown out for no other reason than laziness, ignorance and indifference. In my home country they started years ago to pass all left- overs from restaurants and food vendors on to the poor and hungry. I am absolutely positive that this project would work here just as fine.

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