What Happens to All the Stuff We Return?

> Winter-holiday returns in the United States are now worth more than three hundred billion dollars a year. Zachary [Rogers] said, "So one and a half per cent of U.S. G.D.P.—which would be bigger than the G.D.P. of many countries around the world—is just the stuff that people got for Christmas and said, ‘Nah, do they have blue?’ ”

> A forest’s worth of artificial Christmas trees goes back every January. Bags of green plastic Easter grass go back every spring. Returns of large-screen TVs surge immediately following the Super Bowl.

There's some eye-opening stuff in here. Great share, thank you.