[zeruch]

"The report would be a lot more useful if there were some context for this data. How many items do comparable places like Wal Mart warehouses destroy each week? What's the reason for these items being marked for destruction? What percentage of the products are these; how many items go through the warehouse per week that are not destroyed?"

If you read the article you might have caught some context:

"Many vendors choose to house their products in Amazon’s vast warehouses. But the longer the goods remain unsold, the more a company is charged to store them. It is eventually cheaper to dispose of the goods, especially stock from overseas, than to continue storing the stock."

and

""Overall, 50 percent of all items are unopened and still in their shrink wrap. The other half are returns and in good condition. Staff have just become numb to what they are being asked to do.”"