“Nobodies getting paid. Retailers destroy much of what they cannot sell. Sometimes they are reimbursed by the manufacturer and sometimes they eat the costs.
They destroy because otherwise they get sued or find people returning the items for refunds.”
^^^This
Sometimes you have to provide proof of the destruction to get reimbursed as well. The ‘problem’ would be more with the distributors - if they would accept either proof of destruction OR proof of donation to a nonprofit more companies would likely more than happy to donate.
To prevent returns they'd have to cut the tags or do some other recognizable mark that would affect usability
Don't start stating facts on this thread.