Why Are Companies Misleading Consumers About Recycling?
Take a read about how large corporations and brands are misleading consumers and stakeholders (employees, investors, community) about their recycling efforts.
Rueter’s writers placed tracking devices in shoes that were bound overseas to where U.S. petrochemicals giant Dow Inc and the Singapore government said they would be turned into playgrounds and running tracks. Instead, the shoes were traced to the second-hand market in Batam, Indonesia. Those shoes were supposed to have been recycled in Singapore.
Whether it is in Jakarta or Ghana or Kenya or Uganda; misleading lies about recycling are ever being uncovered. Under the guise of entrepreneurial empowerment, these second-hand distributors PAY charitable organizations for these goods that some call “DEAD MAN’S CLOTHING” and in this case, are shoes.
READ THE ARTICLE HERE ON RUETER’s SPECIAL REPORT
Dow said it was recycling our shoes. We found them at an Indonesian flea market
U.S. petrochemicals giant Dow Inc and the Singapore government said they were transforming old sneakers into playgrounds and running tracks. Reuters put that promise to the test by planting hidden trackers inside 11 pairs of donated shoes. Most got exported instead.
Image: Reuters reporter Joe Brock retrieved this pair of sneakers from a shop in Batam, Indonesia on Dec. 8, 2022. Months earlier he had donated them to a Singapore recycling project that was supposed to turn them into spongy material to build playgrounds and running tracks. He traced their movement with a tracking device. REUTERS/Yuddy Budiman
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