Waste of the Day: Federal Dumpster Diving

Federal agencies spent the past two years deep cleaning their offices, throwing away $10 billion worth of inventory ranging from bandages to airplanes. Only 9% of the items were donated, resold or reused by another agency, even though 56% of the items were unused, the Government Accountability Office found in a new report.

Agencies waste billions in perfectly reusable inventory

Key facts: The report analyzed 48 million items thrown away from July 2023 to September 2025. Almost 60% of them originally cost $1,000 or more. 

Fifty-six percent of the items were completely unused, the GAO found. Another 43% were “usable,” “repairable” or “salvageable.” Only 3% of the discarded inventory was completely unusable. 

The discarded property included multiple airplanes originally purchased for more than $20 million each.

The General Services Administration requires federal employees to list their unneeded equipment on an online platform before disposing of it, allowing other federal agencies to take the item and reuse it. However, most employees don’t even bother including a picture of the equipment. Just 12% of listings had a picture, even though inventory with a photograph was six times more likely to find a new home and avoid the dumpster.

The GSA argued that requiring all listings to include a photograph would be too burdensome, and employees would simply destroy the property rather than expend the extra effort.

More than 90% of the trashed inventory came from the Department of Defense. The GSA, the Department of Energy and NASA were also top contributors.

The GSA’s goal is to have federal agencies dispose of only $1 billion of property per year. There is no explicit goal for reusing or selling more items.

The GAO did not discuss what is possibly the most obvious recommendation: federal agencies should stop spending taxpayer funds on equipment they do not need.

Why buy new when you can reuse?

Summary: Before taxpayers buy the government another desk, computer or airplane, agencies should make a better effort to find someone who can use the ones they already paid for. 

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.

This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and made available via RealClearWire.