A foul-smelling shipment has left a bad taste in both a Walmart employee’s and the internet’s mouths.
What’s happening?
A Reddit post in r/Walmart included a photo of eight cardboard boxes stacked on a pallet in the middle of the sales floor. But it wasn’t the apparel inside that caught attention. The issue was the unmistakable stench clinging to everything.
“These 8 BP boxes of apparel were on a truck with fertilizer, and now it all stinks,” said the original poster.
Photo Credit: Reddit
According to the post, the user was working a closing shift when they were asked to process a set of backroom boxes. The closer they got, the worse the smell became.
“Every. Single. Item. Smells like mulch,” they wrote. The employee said their coach later confirmed the boxes had likely shared a truck with mulch or fertilizer.
Even worse, the worker and their teammates had to mark each item as contaminated, scanning UPCs one by one and submitting photos as proof.
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“I’ve never had to deal with anything like this before, and it was just before my lunch,” they wrote.
“Why would the DC put apparel on the same truck as fertilizer and mulch??” one commenter asked.
Another answered: “Because it’s cheaper to put everything on one full truck than to send two half full trucks.”
Why is textile waste concerning?
Beyond the smell, the poor logistics and questionable hygiene practices caused a lot of the product to go to waste. Apparel exposed to industrial-grade mulch or fertilizer may not be safe to wear or sell, raising red flags for both customer health and product waste.
If contaminated clothing has to be discarded, the environmental cost is steep.
Fast fashion already contributes to around 92 million tons of global textile waste each year. When poor shipping practices render new clothing unsellable, it accelerates waste, pollutes landfills, and throws resources like water, energy, and labor down the drain.
Is Walmart doing anything about this?
While Walmart did not address this issue directly, some commenters speculated that cost-cutting may be behind the decision to mix product types on a single truck.
To its credit, Walmart has rolled out several sustainability efforts in recent years, including Project Gigaton, which aims to eliminate a billion metric tons of planet-warming pollution from its global value chain by 2030.
However, incidents like this show how smaller, less publicized practices like shipping decisions can still undercut progress if not managed responsibly.
What’s being done about textile waste more broadly?
Globally, brands and governments are starting to act. France has started to enact legislation that would ban fast fashion from being imported, and several companies have launched take-back or resale programs to keep textiles in circulation.
Consumers can help too: buying less, choosing quality over quantity, and supporting retailers that offer clothing recycling options. Advocating for better transparency in shipping and handling practices can also push companies to improve how products are stored and delivered.
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