It's no secret that Amazon trashes millions of unsold items every year.  This is very poor global citizenship and needs to stop. And while Amazon has, to a degree, built out logistics for sellers to request overstock or returned items donated, and works with some charitable organizations such as Good360, it is not nearly enough. It is cheaper for Amazon to destroy unsold overstock or returns, so that is what happens the majority of the time.

One of the few trillion dollar companies in the world, Amazon needs to build out the full logistics of a charitable business arm, so that a high percentage of unsold product is: donated to military families, survivors and victims of natural disasters, survivors and families of shooting victims, schools, hospitals, homeless shelters...All of this perfectly good product made available for human use.  Amazon has the resources and all the talent in the world to build out logistics services for a goal of zero waste product, and walk the walk. Even if Amazon has to pay "out of pocket" for this to become reality, it really is the right thing to do and as visionary and forward thinking as the creation of the company was, from a small bookseller.

Not doing this adds significant heaps to the global problem in landfills, e-waste, plastics, packaging, further destruction of our land and sea, and lost human opportunity cost. Amazon has the logistics, technical, legal, political, and creative expertise to make this happen. Amazon can be a leader in this. Let's care for generations to come.