# Scrap wood at Home Depot--Free or not? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 1, 2009, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scrap-wood-at-home-depot-free-or-not/498424 "2009-06-01T23:12:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2017, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scrap-wood-at-home-depot-free-or-not/498424/21 "2017-11-04T06:50:33Z")
Don’t they just send back the covers? That’s what they do with books. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2017, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scrap-wood-at-home-depot-free-or-not/498424/22 "2017-11-05T17:45:15Z")
> [@Aspidistra](#): > > Don’t they just send back the covers? That’s what they do with books. I don’t think so, because, unlike books shipped to a bookstore, newspaper distributors send their trucks directly to all retail outlets, so they don’t need to economize on the return shipping. But I’m no expert on this. I could be wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2017, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scrap-wood-at-home-depot-free-or-not/498424/23 "2017-11-05T17:59:51Z")
My store does things like return damaged/unsold items items to vendors and bales cardboard for sale… but if a customer asks for boxes we give them, and managers are authorized to do some bargaining for damaged/clearance goods. Basically, balancing some good will with pennies we might otherwise earn. The company is financially in the black so it must be working. Likewise, yesterday someone came in and asked for 100 paper grocery bags for a food drive. I said we’d have to run it by management, which we did, and management said sure, go ahead, ask them to credit us with the donation (bags supplied by [Our Store]). So the charity drive got 100 bags for free from us. But as a cashier no, I don’t feel I have the authority to say OK to that. On the other hand, I did offer to ask about it with someone who could. The company does write off a certain amount every year for charitable contributions, and favors a lot of local organizations and charities for their stores so there’s at least a mechanism for this. But that varies from one company to another - our polices are definitely different than Target’s or Wal-Mart’s or Home Depot’s or Costco’s. I’d say it never hurts to ask, but if the peon you’re talking to says “no” don’t blame them, they aren’t the ones that make the rules. ---
**Author:** ![smithsb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smithsb/32/12107_2.png) [@smithsb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smithsb)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2017, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scrap-wood-at-home-depot-free-or-not/498424/24 "2017-11-07T03:48:10Z")
> [@congodwarf](#): > > Oh yeah!! I had forgotten about that. The damn cart was always in the way when we were trying to bring a load of tile or wood flooring to the lumber door for loading. > In addition to them sucking every cent out of people for scrap, they even are supposed to charge a deposit on pallets. > > So, you spend a few hundred dollars on tile, or wood flooring and pick it up all nicely palletized but the cashier is supposed to charge a deposit and you don’t get it back unless you bring the pallet back. > > I’m sorry but when I sell someone over $1000 worth of flooring, I think they should get the pallet for free. Free pallet, no way. Most of the pallets are leased by the store/company. They get stacked, inventoried and sent back to the owing company on a regular basis. Go behind any large store or supermarket and you’ll see the pallets stacked by color coding for inventory and return. Pallet leasing - [leased pallets - Google Search](https://www.google.com/search?q=leased+pallets&rlz=1CATAAC_enUS692US692&oq=leased+pallets&aqs=chrome..69i57.4734j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8w) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scrap-wood-at-home-depot-free-or-not/498424.md?page=1)