[semanticist]

Amazon does this - in the UK there's companies like John Pye who do 'remaindered goods auctions'. There's a John Pye warehouse less than half an hour from this specific Amazon warehouse.

But they've not been able to do their normal auctions during the pandemic, and I expect remainder auction places have full warehouses and staffing issues. So if they're not able to take the excess stock from Amazon, Amazon's next easiest option is to dump it in the landfill.

(Source: I've bought a lot of stuff from that John Pye warehouse, including Amazon returns, and live locally to the Amazon warehouse in question.)