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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

#181

Post by michaelt »

nine_k wrote: post #149
yread wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard that the clothes especially from high end brands are destroyed to keep the value of the brand high ie not to cannibalize sales. Which doesnt seem like good enough reason to burn 300.000+t of clothes (that created untold emissions)

Do high-end brands even produce 300 kilotons of clothing? Assuming, very generously, that a piece of clothing, with packaging and all, weights 1 kg, it would be 300M pieces of clothing; that could be an entire production run of something very ubiquitous (say, Levi's 501), but definitely not high-end.

I think that tonnage is for all textiles, not just high-end clothing.

https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/analysis/publications/the-destr... says "Based on available studies, an estimated 4-9% of all textile products put on the market in Europe are destroyed before use, amounting to between 264,000 and 594,000 tonnes of textiles destroyed each year."

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

#182

Post by aniviacat »

mono442 wrote: post #79

Just another case of the EU being focused on unimportant things while looking away from real issues like cost of living crisis or energy costs. Though on the other hand, it may be for the best since they only make things actively worse.

The government can do more than one thing at a time.

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

#183

Post by digiown »

moralestapia wrote: post #174
digiown wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the recipient of that donation, why would I actually destroy it when I can sell it?

Because that's what you agreed to, that's why they donated it to you.

Then that's not a donation, just some shenanigans to bypass the law, which regulators presumably understands could happen.

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

#184

Post by oblio »

blackoil wrote: post #175
michaelt wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't that good though? It's good for shoppers (if they're informed), the recycler, and the environment. It's bad for the original maker. Imagine a factory mix-up means some ExampleCo jeans are made of much lower quality materials than normal. They'll wear out much faster. But ExampleCo's quality control does its job, notices the inferior quality before they hit store shelves, and sends them for recycling. If the r…

How feasible is to remove tag, scratch serial number?

Especially since EU laws are announced 5-10 years in advance, manufacturers have time to actually design this. For example they could make easily removable labels.

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

#185

Post by jjkaczor »

xp84 wrote: post #150
WalterBright wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imported secondhand clothing is sold at prices that local textile producers cannot compete with. As a result, local garment industries collapse, unable to survive against the flood of cheap imports. Hence, jobs are lost in manufacturing and design, stifling innovation and economic growth.What was intended as charity often becomes a form of economic sabotage. Isn't that another version of the Broken Window Fallacy?…

Well, it's pretty hard to generalize that to the entire globe, or universe. Imagine if an alien race started landing thousands of crates on Earth full of cars, computers, clothes, etc. Every day for 30 years the crates come, all of it's free. Several dynamics can arise: 1. The elites grab the crates and hoard them, leveraging their existing power to make sure they enrich themselves and extend their power. They sell t…

We don't even need to bring aliens into this scenario - as this is the direction we are already heading towards with fully automated manufacturing and AI replacing vast sectors of human labour...

(And yeah, I get it - no one "really" wants to work on a "soul-crushing" assembly/production-line... People want to make art (or games) or write novels... (both areas of creative work which are ALSO being targeted by AI)... but people definitely want to "eat" and have shelter and our whole system is built on having to pay for those priviledges...)

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

#186

Post by digiown »

blell wrote: post #136
jacquesm wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man it would really make my day if all the homeless people started walking around in Prada and Gucci. That would probably be just thing to kill off these brands for good.

Why do you want those brands to die?

Brand value particularly for commodity products is usually just a form of information asymmetry between consumers and suppliers, and creates economic inefficiency since it diverts expenditure from other products that can materially improve lives. It also allows enshittification to happen since it creates inertia (brand loyalty) to switching, and the positive brand image sticks around for longer than the actual good quality products.

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

#187

Post by dijit »

tsoukase wrote: post #179

EU fixes textile waste. What about plastic waste that dwarfs any other polution with the forever chemicals? No economy dares to touch this subject seriously.

textile waste, largely, is plastic waste.

Nearly all of the clothes you can buy contain a decent amount of plastic (elastane, polyester etc are just nice names for plastic).

in fact, I’ve been trying to buy plastic-free clothing for a few years (ever since micro-plastic was linked to diminished testosterone & fertility in men) I am finding it difficult, you often have to buy luxury and even then it’s no guarantee.

fast fashion is by far the worst offender though.

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

#189

Post by anymouse123456 »

It’s shocking to see this legislated.

As if companies are just out here wantonly destroying otherwise valuable goods that could have been easily sold at a profit instead.

I guarantee this problem is far more complex and troublesome than the bureaucrats would ever understand, much less believe, yet they have no problem piling on yet another needless regulatory burden.

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

#190

Post by kshacker »

michaelt wrote: post #168
jwr wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> companies who will claim to recycle your products or donate them to good causes in other countries, but actually they’ll just end up on eBay or even in some cases being injected back in to retail channels Isn't that good though? Unless the defects make the product somehow dangerous, this means that it found its way to users who are OK with it, thus avoiding waste. And someone even made money in the process. (all as…

> Isn't that good though? It's good for shoppers (if they're informed), the recycler, and the environment. It's bad for the original maker. Imagine a factory mix-up means some ExampleCo jeans are made of much lower quality materials than normal. They'll wear out much faster. But ExampleCo's quality control does its job, notices the inferior quality before they hit store shelves, and sends them for recycling. If the r…

What stops ExampleCo from asking for a receipt and limiting replacements only to legitimate channels? Or why is ExampleCo directly dealing with the consumer, and not Macys or Goodwill?

I suspect this will need to be a cultural change. If ExampleCo does it but not RandomCo, of course your reputation will suffer. But if the law is for all of EU, it gives everyone an equal footing.

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