EU ban on destruction of unsold clothes and shoes enters into application

cassianoleal

How long until they start shipping those abroad where they will become toxic bonfires?

xnx

Is this a problem in the EU? I often think in terms of home remodels that a family might do at least once. Those can easily fill a dumpster with tons of garbage. That's much more waste than a family could ever generate directly or indirectly in clothing.

amazingamazing

Why would this ever happen? Is it cheaper to destroy than sell at discount?

tancop

some places already do this for food where anything thats after sell by date but still safe to eat has to be donated to a food bank. i think it should be expanded to cover more categories than food and clothes when reuse and recycling infra grows to take the demand. its not just good for the environment it also prevents producers from restricting supply to keep their profits high. the ultimate goal is make it illegal to destroy or intentionally damage anything usable before it reaches consumers. that would create a new ecosystem of discount stores and giveaway centers, and save everyone a ton of money.

Saline9515

It looks like a great opportunity for mafia networks to get paid by clothing brands in order to dispose of the stocks.

iammjm

Great! “Fashion” is capitalism’s toxic way of having people discard perfectly good clothes and buy new ones every 12 months. It’s stupid, wasteful, and disgusting

nieksand

It seems like this policy would lead to shortages in less common sizes of clothing.

carlosjobim

What I admire the most about this is that already months before passing this law, all the members of the European Commission signed a document that they as individuals will not purchase any new or expensive clothes during their time in office, as an act of solidarity and to show they also take their individual responsibility to reduce waste.

zkmon

Industrial production would far exceed the needs of people in the target markets. Supply chains are also highly streamlined. Some amazon boxes would go to dump unopened, after delivering to customer. The state of perishable goods is much worse. A lot is dumped in food and short shelf-life items. Nothing can be done here. This is not even a brand issue. Do not give license to industrial production or imports that far exceeds the needs of people in that region.

UltraSane

It should be illegal for stores to throw away edible food.

dash2

I don’t understand why they would ban this rather than charge for it. It seems very likely that destroying unsold clothes is sometimes the socially efficient thing to do, even after taking into account the environmental externalities.

roysting

So the corporation can just sell or donate them to their own shell entity in some tax preferred jurisdiction and then destroys them and take a loss that can be shuffled back to the corporation?

okr

So i buy from my own money fabrics, machines and also i pay handy people to make clothes out of it. I can not sell them all. My Risk. And as an additional punishment i lose the right to do whatever i want with my own property? Mad world.

sajithdilshan

I’m pretty sure all those brands would now export those clothes to non-EU Balkan countries or even Turkey to be destroyed.

nullorempty

They should really follow up with a similar policy on food. At a nearby whole foods a large portion of produce goes to waste. It's heartbreaking to see.

bananamogul

"Companies may only destroy unsold clothes and shoes in limited cases, such as when items are unsafe or damaged, counterfeit or infringing intellectual property rights, or are rejected by charities or donation schemes." Nike's unsold, defective, or returned shoes are ground up to make carpet padding. They're processed by the truckload in a large grinding machine. It seems that under these rules, this would be illegal - ?

radu_floricica

> To prevent misuse, businesses relying on these exemptions must provide proof (e.g. documents or test results) and publish annual reports on what they have discarded. I wonder if anybody is keeping track of everything a mid size business needs to take care of. Each particular report probably sounds like a reasonable request, but by now they're probably well into hundreds, and they're all outside the actual scope of the business (e.g. it may seem manageable for the bureaucrats designing them, because that's what they deal with all day, but not for a small organization doing... something else).

WalterBright

Wouldn't that drive textile manufacturing out of the EU?

storus

Africa is going to be full of old Versaces, Balenciagas, Guccis and Valentinos.

skybrian

It sounds like charities will be getting a lot of unsalable clothing to go through. Maybe they could charge businesses for taking it? It seems rather similar to what Ross Clothing does.