Here's the Brian Larosho on WNYC. Good morning again everyone.

Now a peek inside the world of reverse logistics. David Owen of the New Yorker asks in a recent

story, what happens to all the stuff we return? David's reporting delves into the growing

problem of returns, especially from all the online shopping people have been doing since

the start of COVID and the challenges they pose for retailers. Most online shoppers, David

writes, assume that items they return go back into regular inventory to be sold again

at full price. That rarely happens. Consider for a moment that for some online apparel

retailers returns make up about 40% of sales, they say. So obviously this isn't just a

problem for retailers. There are environmental impacts and ethical considerations about

waste and sustainability too. David Owen joins us now, staff writer at the New Yorker. Again,

his article is called, what happens to all the stuff where you return? Hi David, thanks

for coming on WNYC today. Hey Brian. And let me start here. As part of your reporting,

you attended a conference in where else Las Vegas conducted by the reverse logistics

association, which you describe as a trade group whose members deal in various ways with

product returns, unsold inventories and other capitalist jetsome. I love that word, seeing

that word in New Yorker, jetsome. What did you learn when you convened with them? Take

us inside the world and maybe even define for our listeners reverse logistics?

Yeah, it's kind of, it's like the mirror image of what we've talked about a lot in recent

years. There's the supply chain and then there's the reverse supply chain. So there's the

supply chain is how stuff gets from manufacturers to retailers and to us. And the reverse supply

chain is how we send back the stuff that we don't want. And now that much more shopping

is done online, that percentage has increased. I mean, there's just stuff that I never would

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