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EU bans the destruction of unsold apparel, clothing, accessories and footwear

environment.ec.europa.eu

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Re: EU bans the destruction of unsold apparel, clothing, accessories and footwear

#41

Post by docflabby »

kwanbix wrote: post #4
throwaway198846 wrote: post #2

Can they ship it outside the EU and then destroy it? What happens if truly nobody wants those clothes? Why not just put a carbon tax per weight?

Maybe donate it to poor countries? When I used to work for the biggest ecommerce in europe, we had various stages for clothes. The last stage was selling the clothes by kilo to companies.

Most clothes are manufactured in countries with cheaper labor costs to cut costs - the reality is clothes are cheap to make in terms of raw materials- and dumping unwanted clothes will just destory the local economy

Re: EU bans the destruction of unsold apparel, clothing, accessories and footwear

#42

Post by subscribed »

kwanbix wrote: post #4
throwaway198846 wrote: post #2

Can they ship it outside the EU and then destroy it? What happens if truly nobody wants those clothes? Why not just put a carbon tax per weight?

Maybe donate it to poor countries? When I used to work for the biggest ecommerce in europe, we had various stages for clothes. The last stage was selling the clothes by kilo to companies.

I don't think these companies want the poor people to wear their brand.

They'll find another way to destroy them.

2018 article reports that Burberry destroyed £28 millions worth of clothes to keep their brand "exclusive": https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44885983

Re: EU bans the destruction of unsold apparel, clothing, accessories and footwear

#43

Post by saubeidl »

blueblimp wrote: post #6

Seems bizarre. It's not like companies didn't want to sell it--they'd prefer to have the revenue. This is just kicking them then while they're down. I wonder if it will reduce risk-taking since it increases the downside of launching an unpopular product.

It costs a company nothing to donate an unsold coat to a homeless shelter.

Re: EU bans the destruction of unsold apparel, clothing, accessories and footwear

#44

Post by isodev »

buzzerbetrayed wrote: post #34
Mordisquitos wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder if it will reduce risk-taking since it increases the downside of launching an unpopular product. That is a feature, not a bug. Risk-taking in "apparel, clothing, accessories and footwear" which results in wasted resources is not something to incentivise.

Counter point: all of human existence. We wouldn’t have 99% of the technological advancements we’ve made without a fuckton of failure and waste.

But now that we do, we know how to be smarter about it going forward

Re: EU bans the destruction of unsold apparel, clothing, accessories and footwear

#45

Post by pfp »

throwaway198846 wrote: post #2

Can they ship it outside the EU and then destroy it? What happens if truly nobody wants those clothes? Why not just put a carbon tax per weight?

I wouldn't be surprised if they "sold" (at a nominal price) the extra stock to a company outside the union for "resale" (burning in India or dumping into the ocean)

What we really need is 10x more expensive, durable clothing that you buy every 10 years. And the cultural shift to go along with it. Not Mao suits for everyone but some common effing sense. But I guess that's bad for business and boring for consumers, so...

Re: EU bans the destruction of unsold apparel, clothing, accessories and footwear

#46

Post by grayhatter »

ch4s3 wrote: post #7
JasonADrury wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What happens if truly nobody wants those clothes In theory companies would eventually be forced to produce less items nobody wants, although this is just an additional incentive in that natural process.

That doesn't really make sense, losing your whole investment is already a strong incentive to not produce something you can't sell.

Assume the legislation is trying to reduce a real problem. Why does that problem exist if that incentive is actually really strong in practice?

I assume it's not actually a really strong incentive in context.

Re: EU bans the destruction of unsold apparel, clothing, accessories and footwear

#47

Post by saubeidl »

jjkaczor wrote: post #26
whateverboat wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Donations would already be a great thing. This law makes it feasible in boardrooms to justify donations. Donations to shelters, developing countries and otherwise.

That has already been happening for decades - and it isn't the "net benefit" most think it is - here is just one example - but there are dozens of similar articles that can be found: https://www.udet.org/post/the-hidden-cost-of-generosity-how-...

You can steer where donations go with regulations. I don't see any downsides of warm coats to homeless shelters for example.

Re: EU bans the destruction of unsold apparel, clothing, accessories and footwear

#48

Post by CPLX »

kmeisthax wrote: post #40

A good chunk of unsold clothing destruction happens because the brand considers fire sales to be brand damage. I have to wonder if they'll comply with this regulation willingly, or if they'll do some stupid workaround to make sure they can continue to pointlessly destroy clothing for the sake of a brand image.

They can just pull the labels off or relabel them. That’s the usual approach

Re: EU bans the destruction of unsold apparel, clothing, accessories and footwear

#49

Post by saubeidl »

smt88 wrote: post #33
whateverboat wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Donations would already be a great thing. This law makes it feasible in boardrooms to justify donations. Donations to shelters, developing countries and otherwise.

What developing country do you think has a clothing shortage?

What about the poor in their own countries that might not be able to afford clothes?

Re: EU bans the destruction of unsold apparel, clothing, accessories and footwear

#50

Post by wao0uuno »

blueblimp wrote: post #6

Seems bizarre. It's not like companies didn't want to sell it--they'd prefer to have the revenue. This is just kicking them then while they're down. I wonder if it will reduce risk-taking since it increases the downside of launching an unpopular product.

Oh no, poor fast fashion companies won't be able to continue maximizing their profits by using slave labor to manufacture ginormous amounts of garbage that goes out of fashion in a week. Guess they'll have to reduce their garbage output or switch to manufacturing quality stuff that can hang out on a store's shelf for a bit longer. The fucking horror. Fuck them.
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