Walmart fined $110 million for dumping toxic chemicals in California

Walmart fined $110 million for dumping toxic chemicals in California

www.rawstory.com

Wal-Mart was hit with $110 million in US federal and state fines Tuesday after pleading guilty to criminal charges of mishandling hazardous waste and pesticides at its retail stores.

The world’s largest retailer was fined for dumping hazardous chemicals in city trash bins and sewer systems in cases filed by the Los Angeles and San Francisco municipalities.

In addition, the US Justice Department said Wal-Mart Stores had mishandled pesticides it had sent as damaged products to a Missouri recycling facility that resulted in them being mixed together and put on sale again in a process that

(visit the link for the full news article)

That is a lot of damn # to be dumping and this $110 million fine is far less then even one days profit for these #ing maggots. Anyone who shops at Wal-Mart is participating in their own destruction and the destruction of the planet.

www.rawstory.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

So what is your alternative?

Have the government break up Wal-mart?

Considering the size of their corporation you can expect some misdeeds to happen somewhere. Obviously they are not doing this everywhere and this was an isolated incident.

But what the heck...break them up....

Sad

Originally posted by Hopechest
So what is your alternative?

Have the government break up Wal-mart?

Considering the size of their corporation you can expect some misdeeds to happen somewhere. Obviously they are not doing this everywhere and this was an isolated incident.

But what the heck...break them up....

Sad

Where was the idea to "break up Wal-Mart" proposed in the OP? Walmart is a craptastic place to shop but they don't have a monopoly in that field so I can't figure out why you would suggest that the government should break it up.

------

To the OP: Thanks for the post. I can only imagine that the folks in Bentonville are just writing it all off as "the cost of doing business..." Can we say "chump change"?

reply to post by NiteNGale2


Well that's the problem.

The OP gave no alternative and since he called Wal-mart "maggots" I can only assume he would prefer them to go away.

If I am wrong please correct me.

Originally posted by MrMaybeNot

That is a lot of damn # to be dumping and this $110 million fine is far less then even one days profit for these #ing maggots. Anyone who shops at Wal-Mart is participating in their own destruction and the destruction of the planet.

www.rawstory.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

edit on 29-5-2013 by MrMaybeNot because: (no reason given)

I absolutely detest Walmart, unfortunately, to buy the goods they offer it sometimes requires about 10x the amount of time to hit every specialty market they offer products for. And every now and then I cave in. I could care less about the "morality" issues that arise, personally I hate them based on their customer service record with yours truly. It's been atrocious.

In any case, everytime I go there when I leave I feel like I just left the company of a cheap hooker.

Criminal charges you say? Plead guilty you say? Funny... Any other person and they'd be in jail. Does this mean Walmart can be labeled a criminal organization like the way the Hells Angels, or the "Mafia" is... and in the future can be prosecuted under the RICO act?

Nope.

They pay money so that doesn't happen. Good for them!

reply to post by boncho


I really don't understand this hate on Wal-mart.

What bad customer service did you get?

You taking back that ten dollar vegetable steamer you grandma bought you and you had to wait in line for 20 minutes?

Its a fricken grocery store for pete's sake.

Rat poison in Wal-Mart brand pet foods Ol'Roy specifically, now this?

I don't trust wal-mart, Sam Walton is like Walt Disney, a thing of the past, with empires
reaching to monopolize and destroy everything the founders had in mind. Richest people
in the world, the Waltons, 100mil is chump change for them, can't really imagine what
it'd be like to have 20billion, I bet they have big targets on their face, recruiting targets
for scientology.

Originally posted by Hopechest
reply to post by boncho

 

I really don't understand this hate on Wal-mart.

What bad customer service did you get?

You taking back that ten dollar vegetable steamer you grandma bought you and you had to wait in line for 20 minutes?

Its a fricken grocery store for pete's sake.

I hope for your own sake you are not buying grocerys at walmart.

Originally posted by Hopechest
reply to post by NiteNGale2

 

Well that's the problem.

The OP gave no alternative and since he called Wal-mart "maggots" I can only assume he would prefer them to go away.

If I am wrong please correct me.

No alternative? To what? Wal-mart? Cheap shopping? Low overhead/high profit? Alternative to what?

I think that the grief against wallyworld in the article and the op is about the comparison between the offense and the fine as punishment for that offense. The monetary punishment is not in congruence with the fine that a person would expect to be levied against a corporation that has that much value. Fines are supposed to hurt, not to only be a nuisance to the shareholders.

Originally posted by Hopechest
So what is your alternative?

Have the government break up Wal-mart?

Considering the size of their corporation you can expect some misdeeds to happen somewhere. Obviously they are not doing this everywhere and this was an isolated incident.

But what the heck...break them up....

Sad

Why is it obvious they are not doing this elsewhere? I worked for 15 yrs. for a large grocery store chain, and worked backstage with corporate, and it was my experience that the policies on operating procedures are designed to be standardized in all stores. It really wouldn't surprise me if this wasn't a calculated "risk" to cut costs, as the OP pointed out this fine was a drop in the bucket for Walmart.

can't say i.m surprised by this at all. it's standard operating procedure to save a buck at all costs.

one store i worked at had been pumping used oil down the sewage drains for a few years (not purposely). due to "lowest bidder construction" when the store was built they put some 90 degree angles in the used oil system, which at some point had become blocked due to sediment within the used oil. this caused the oil to "back flow" into the floor drain system as the floor drains were designed to remove oil from the floor into the used oil tank while the water went into the sewage system. but instead because of the blocked pipe it instead send MOST of the used oil from the shop into the sewage system.

this was accidental as i mentioned, yet it COULD have been discovered long before had management been WILLING to spend a few bucks for a LOCK. sound a bit weird? well the way it happened was that the used oil company had been complaining that there was very little used oil to be picked up from this busy shop. everyone ASSUMED that it was being STOLEN, (and yes people DO steal used oil ). the company kept demanding a lock be put on the access cap so that someone could not steal the used oil. but the manager (who was also part of HEAD OFFICE management) could not be BOTHERED to get a lock and lock it up,(i will explain one reason why they didn't want to do this later). so this went on for a couple years as the amount of oil to be picked up kept decreasing. finally after several months where there was practically NO oil in the tank, the used oil company annoyed at this, (considering they kept asking for a lock to be put on) apparently called in the environmental agency saying the in ground tank must be leaking. after it was all checked out it was discovered that no the tank was fine it was just that due to the pipe being blocked all the used oil was going down the sewer. i really never have figured out why nobody ever noticed all that oil but then again emptying the used oil tended to happen at shop closing at night.

at least one reason why the manager did not want the access cap locked was HE would dump ANYTHING down into the tank he or the store didn't want, paint, chemicals, rustproofing oils, used cooking oil (that restaurants seemed to like gifting the store with in 50 gallon drums at night), unknown chemicals people also left, coolant from customers etc, if it was kind of liquidy, he would dump it in. now this caused a lot of complaints on it's own with the oil recycling company, yet the manager who was the primary one doing the dumping as well as ordering other staff to do it, would LIE to them and say people must be doing it at night. he even claimed that locks were even being cut off to do it, and that's why he wasn't putting any more locks on. it really came to a head at the end when even tho there was no used oil there was always plenty of other crap in the tank, i guess that's why they called the environmental office.

on a similar note while not wal-mart, there was something else rather nasty going on. McDonalds had their own "oil problems" also because they could not bother with locks. they kept THEIR used cooking oil right by the auto shop parking lot. now that cooking oil gets recycled and cleaned to be reused. yet because they never locked it up,people were dumping used motor oil, coolant and other things like that into it. they were even told about this happening yet they did nothing to stop it happening, and so all those wonderful automotive chemicals and who knows what else was being sent in to be reused.

I just hope that the money they fined them is used to clean up where necessary.

Originally posted by Hopechest
reply to post by boncho

 

I really don't understand this hate on Wal-mart.

What bad customer service did you get?

You taking back that ten dollar vegetable steamer you grandma bought you and you had to wait in line for 20 minutes?

Its a fricken grocery store for pete's sake.

You are under the impression customer service refers to the "customer service desk" where you return items? You realize there are industries built around customer service and it has nothing to do with returning goods right?

reply to post by boncho

I give you the Walmart window into the future:

Originally posted by boncho

Originally posted by Hopechest
reply to post by boncho

 

I really don't understand this hate on Wal-mart.

What bad customer service did you get?

You taking back that ten dollar vegetable steamer you grandma bought you and you had to wait in line for 20 minutes?

Its a fricken grocery store for pete's sake.

You are under the impression customer service refers to the "customer service desk" where you return items? You realize there are industries built around customer service and it has nothing to do with returning goods right?

edit on 29-5-2013 by boncho because: (no reason given)

I am not under that impression whatsoever

But thank you for proving my point.

Walmart fined $110 million for dumping toxic chemicals in California......(but what? - would have been paid $5 million to dump them in Idaho?)

Reread the headline, it's as bad as regular media...

Originally posted by Hopechest

Originally posted by boncho

Originally posted by Hopechest
reply to post by boncho

 

I really don't understand this hate on Wal-mart.

What bad customer service did you get?

You taking back that ten dollar vegetable steamer you grandma bought you and you had to wait in line for 20 minutes?

Its a fricken grocery store for pete's sake.

You are under the impression customer service refers to the "customer service desk" where you return items? You realize there are industries built around customer service and it has nothing to do with returning goods right?

edit on 29-5-2013 by boncho because: (no reason given)

I am not under that impression whatsoever

But thank you for proving my point.

And the point is?

Walmarts vision of customer service offsets their offenses....?
A good price check always makes my day better ?

Profit sharing wrapped in the guise of "fines".

reply to post by Hopechest

I am not under that impression whatsoever

But thank you for proving my point.

You haven't proven any point, incoherent speech that is only cogent to the person writing it is not proving anything but self delusions.

Sorry to say.

Proving a point would involve presenting a suspected hypothesis to begin with. Which you did no such thing.

I saw you made rhetorical questions (loaded and not relevant) and you made assumptions. Did I miss something? Or are you so far superior than the rest of us no one except yourself is able to decipher your wise meaning?