Article; What Happens to All the Stuff We Return?
https://archive.ph/dxz2X
Earlier this year, I attended a three-day conference, in Las Vegas, conducted by the Reverse Logistics Association, a trade group whose members deal in various ways with product returns, unsold inventories, and other capitalist jetsam. The field is large and growing. Dale Rogers, a business professor at Arizona State, gave a joint presentation with his son Zachary, a business professor at Colorado State, during which they said that winter-holiday returns in the United States are now worth more than three hundred billion dollars a year.

Article: The Nasty Logistics of Returning Your Too-Small Pants
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/free-returns-online-shopping/620169/
What happens to the stuff you order online after you send it back?