US retailers sent an estimated 9.5 billion pounds of returned merchandise to landfills in the year covered by Optoro’s 2022 environmental impact study, generating 24 million metric tons of CO2 emissions in the process. That figure has moved up and down since 2017 rather than climbing in a straight line, and it sits next to a separate, far higher claim from an Arizona State University supply chain researcher that more than 80% of returns end up as garbage. The two numbers do not agree, and the gap says as much about how little the industry discloses as it does about the scale of the waste itself.
How many pounds of returned merchandise end up in landfill each year?
US retailers landfill an estimated 9.5 billion pounds of returned merchandise a year, per Optoro’s 2022 environmental impact study, which also puts the associated carbon footprint at 24 million metric tons of CO2. That is the most recent full-year figure Optoro has published as a single headline number, and it followed several years of increases from a lower base.
Optoro, a reverse-logistics technology company that works with large retailers on returns processing, has published a version of this estimate almost every year since 2017. In December 2017, the company told Retail Dive that returns created about 5 billion pounds of landfill waste and 15 million metric tons of CO2 annually. By 2020, Optoro’s own returns report put the figure at 5.8 billion pounds. The number then jumped to the 9.5 billion pounds cited above for 2022, before easing back to 8.4 billion pounds in 2023, according to Optoro’s “2024 Returns Unwrapped” report.
Figure 1: Landfilled return volume by year, as reported in successive Optoro studies. Source: Optoro via Retail Dive (2017), Optoro Returns Report (2020), Optoro environmental impact study (2022), Optoro 2024 Returns Unwrapped report (2023 data).
The pounds-of-waste figure is trending down from its 2022 peak even as the dollar value of returns keeps climbing, which points to more items being diverted away from landfill, not fewer.
What percentage of returned items actually get thrown away?
About 48% of returned items are resold at full price, and the other 52% are marked down, liquidated, donated, recycled, or landfilled, according to NRF and Happy Returns’ 2025 retail returns research. That split is close to what Optoro reported back in 2017, when the company told Retail Dive that roughly half of all returns were re-shelved for resale and half went through some other path.
Figure 2: Disposition of a typical returned item. Source: NRF and Happy Returns, 2025 retail returns research.
Warning
Estimates of the landfill-specific share of that 52% vary widely and do not agree. A supply chain management professor at Arizona State University, Hitendra Chaturvedi, has put the figure at more than 80% of returns ending up in landfills or shipped overseas as garbage, a number several multiples higher than what Optoro’s own tonnage-based studies support. Neither claim comes with a published dataset large enough to settle the question, and the gap likely comes down to definitions: “discarded” can mean destroyed outright, or it can mean anything that leaves a retailer’s normal inventory, including liquidation and export channels that are not literal landfills.
Most returns are not landfilled outright, but the industry has no single, disclosed number for what share specifically ends up in a landfill rather than a discount rack or a donation bin.
Why is it cheaper for retailers to landfill a return than resell it?
Processing a single return, inspecting it, testing it, repackaging it, and restocking it, can cost a retailer roughly 66% of the product’s price, according to Optoro. Below a certain price point, that math makes disposal cheaper than resale, especially for items with damaged packaging, apparel that has been worn, or products subject to health and safety rules such as cosmetics and food-adjacent goods.
That processing burden is heavier than it sounds. More than 80% of returned items cannot go straight back on a shelf, according to NRF and Happy Returns’ 2025 research; they need inspection, testing, or refurbishment first, and some fraction of those never clear that bar at all. Retailers that spell out condition requirements and restocking fees in a clear refund policy upfront give shoppers fewer reasons to return an item that will cost more to process than it is worth reselling, which keeps more inventory out of the 52% bucket described above in the first place.
The 66% processing cost is the single biggest reason a low-value return is more likely to end its life in a landfill than back on a shelf.
How big is the total returns market, and is it still growing?
US shoppers returned an estimated $890 billion in merchandise in 2024, a 16.9% return rate, according to the National Retail Federation and Happy Returns. NRF’s 2025 forecast eased slightly to $849.9 billion, a 15.8% return rate, the first year-over-year decline in total return value the two organizations have reported in several years.
Not every industry report agrees on the exact scale. Appriss Retail and Deloitte’s 2024 analysis put total returns closer to $685 billion, a 13.21% return rate, using a different survey methodology and retailer sample than NRF’s. Treat the underlying dollar figure as directional rather than a settled number; the trend direction, a return rate hovering in the mid-teens with a slight easing into 2025, is more consistent across sources than the exact total.
Figure 3: Total US retail returns by year. Source: National Retail Federation and Happy Returns, 2023-2025 returns reports.
For the return-rate side of that math, see our breakdown of how many online orders get returned each year, which covers the 19.3% online-specific figure behind this blended national average.
The dollar value of returns is easing slightly at the same time the pounds-of-waste figure fell in 2023, but neither trend is large enough yet to call the landfill problem solved.
Which product categories drive the most landfill-bound returns?
Apparel drives the highest return rates of any major retail category, with online clothing returns running an estimated 20% to 40% depending on the study, compared with roughly 7% for consumer electronics. Apparel is also disproportionately hard to resell once returned: worn items, broken size runs, and fast-changing seasonal stock all cut into what a retailer can put back on a shelf at full price.
Figure 4: Return rate by product category versus the overall 2024 average. Source: industry reverse-logistics reporting; overall figure from NRF and Happy Returns, 2024.
Not every return in these categories reflects genuine buyer’s remorse or a bad fit, either. Some of that volume is fraudulent returns claiming a discount or an item the shopper intends to keep, which retailers have to sort out before any resale or landfill decision gets made.
Apparel’s combination of a high return rate and low resale value is why clothing shows up disproportionately in nearly every landfill estimate in this article.
What happens to a returned item before it reaches a landfill?
A returned item does not go straight from a customer’s doorstep to a dumpster. Most large retailers route it through an inspection step first, checking whether the packaging, condition, and category allow it to go back on a shelf as new; from there it either gets restocked, sent to a discount or liquidation channel, donated, recycled, or, if none of those apply, landfilled.
Figure 5: The disposition path a returned item typically follows. Source: synthesized from Optoro and NRF/Happy Returns reporting cited above.
Landfill sits at the end of that chain, not the front of it, which is also why it is the hardest step for outside researchers to measure directly.
Landfilled return volume, year by year
| Year | Landfill waste (billion lbs) | CO2 emissions (million metric tons) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 5.0 | 15 | Optoro via Retail Dive |
| 2020 | 5.8 | Not disclosed | Optoro 2020 Returns Report |
| 2022 | 9.5 | 24 | Optoro environmental impact study |
| 2023 | 8.4 | Not disclosed | Optoro 2024 Returns Unwrapped |
Returns market size, year by year
| Year | Total returns value | Return rate | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | $743 billion | ~15% | NRF and Happy Returns |
| 2024 | $890 billion | 16.9% | NRF and Happy Returns |
| 2025 (forecast) | $849.9 billion | 15.8% | NRF and Happy Returns |
The Bottom Line
The single most reliable number here is the trend, not any one year’s total. Optoro’s own studies put landfilled return volume at 9.5 billion pounds in 2022, up from 5 billion in 2017, then down to 8.4 billion in 2023 as more retailers built out resale and liquidation channels. Roughly half of all returns are resold at full price in any given year, and the other half funnel through discount racks, liquidators, donation programs, or, when nothing else works, a landfill. Store owners cannot control the macro return rate, but a clear, upfront policy on condition and restocking fees keeps more low-value items from becoming returns in the first place, which is the cheapest way to stay out of the landfill statistics altogether.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many pounds of returned items end up in landfill each year? An estimated 9.5 billion pounds of returned merchandise ended up in US landfills in the year covered by Optoro’s 2022 environmental impact study, producing 24 million metric tons of CO2 emissions in the process.
What percentage of returned items get resold? About 48% of returned items are resold at full price, according to NRF and Happy Returns’ 2025 retail returns research. The remaining 52% are marked down, liquidated, donated, recycled, or landfilled.
Why do retailers landfill returns instead of reselling them? Processing a single return can cost a retailer roughly 66% of the item’s price, according to Optoro, so items below a certain resale value are often cheaper to discard than to inspect, repackage, and restock.
Is the amount of landfilled returns increasing? It has moved unevenly. Optoro-reported landfill volume rose from about 5 billion pounds in 2017 to 9.5 billion pounds in 2022, then eased to 8.4 billion pounds in 2023 as more retailers added resale and liquidation channels.
Sources and References
- Appriss Retail. (2024). “From Cart to Landfill: Reducing Retail Waste with Sustainable Returns.” Cites Optoro’s 2022 environmental impact study, 9.5 billion pounds landfilled, 24 million metric tons CO2, and Appriss Retail/Deloitte’s own 2024 return rate data.
- Optoro. (2020). “Returns Report: Powering Resilient Retail in 2020.” 5.8 billion pounds of landfill waste from returns.
- Optoro. Return processing cost estimate (66% of item price) and Arizona State University professor Hitendra Chaturvedi’s greater-than-80% landfill estimate.
- Retail Dive. (2017). “Study: 5B Pounds of Retail Returns End Up in Landfills.” Optoro data, 5 billion pounds and 15 million metric tons CO2, half of returns re-shelved for resale.
- National Retail Federation and Happy Returns. (2024). “2024 Consumer Returns in the Retail Industry.” $890 billion in returns, 16.9% return rate.
- National Retail Federation and Happy Returns. (2025). “2025 Retail Returns Landscape.” $849.9 billion forecast, 15.8% return rate.
- Forbes. (2026). “Fraud Is Only The Tip Of Retail’s $850 Billion Returns Challenge.” 48% of returns resold at full price, more than 80% of returns require inspection before restocking.
Note: All figures verified as of July 2026. Returns and disposition data changes with holiday cycles and retailer disclosure practices, so headline figures are refreshed at least twice a year.
