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

environment.ec.europa.eu

121–130 of 322 posts

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

#121

"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…

I guess it comes down to if that is considered recycling. I'd personally consider it such, but not sure what the legal definitions will be.

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

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have to deal with less sales and or storing excess inventory. Let's say you have some bruised bananas. You either have to keep them on the shelf till they rot (less space for sellable product) or donate them and then people won't buy as many bananas, so you need to raise the price.

People eating donated bananas are not buying bananas if there are none available for free. They are just not eating bananas.

Says who? Would you prefer free bananas or paying?

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

#123

"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…

Isn't that recycling instead of destroying?

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

#124
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many years ago I worked in the printing industry. F.ex. a client wants 100 products of something (e.g. posters or flyers), usually it was more cost effective to produce a 1000 (or more) and then throw away 900 the client didn't need. Obviously a huge waste of material.

Isn't that law exactly trying to avoid that kind of waste?

Yes. But in some cases the waste will be avoided by not doing a production run at all if the minimum production quantity is too high and the law prohibits destroying the unwanted product.

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

#125
post #25
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to start somewhere, no? We have laws against stealing and murder and folks don’t usually go around saying they should be removed from the books because some people still steal and commit murder.

Yes, but those laws are pretty effective. They do deter murderers and thieves, and take them out of society so they cannot repeat their offences. Ill thought out regulations can make things worse - I am convinced this is the case for the UK's Online Safety Act, for example. That (and the proposed ban on social media for under 16s) is also promoted on "we must do something" grounds. I am very much in favour of some pr…

Why would this law make things worse?

What would your proposal be for fixing what you’ve identified as the underlying problem?

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

#126

"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…

There is a lot more information about it here: https://environment.ec.europa.eu/strategy/circular-economy/e..., and the full (current) text being here: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A...

As far as I can tell (although I'm no lawyer, sorry Nike), the point is to reduce waste and to increase recycled content in use. With these two main objectives, what Nike is doing seem to be fitting within that. It's not the "destruction" itself that is bad, but what you do with that after the destruction, recycling it doesn't create waste (or maybe, as much waste) as outright destroying+throwing all of it.

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

#127

"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…

Yes, with the exception of ‘unsafe’ where a shoe is used and/or non-cosmetically defective.

The law reduces wasted production inputs — materials, energy, and labor — as well as production outputs — wearable shoes, here. This directly regulates a practice by brands where they destroy wearable clothing rather than see their latest branded fashion worn by people who bought it at a discount or received it for free. This also directly regulates corporations from using grinders, melters, incinerators, landfills, and overseas ‘recycling’ (=landfills) to replace warehouses with retailers, accelerate product cycle times and derive FOMO sales benefits without the cost of reducing their batch sizes. The apparel industry is destroying something like one third of what it produces, so it’s certainly earned regulation of its ‘this shall not be sold’ decisions to its disfavor.

I would expect Nike in the EU market to either increase product prices and/or decrease release intervals until their inventory supply is lowered to meet demand while claiming that it’s the EU’s fault that their hottest shoes aren’t yet available, rather than maintaining their existing cycle times and quantities by donating their wearable, branded, wealth-signaling shoes to be worn by poor people. (Perhaps that’s already begun?)

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

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, the waste is not pointless, it's part of an inventory management strategy to ensure adequate supply. If your local grocery store established a policy that they'll never buy more meat than they're sure they can sell before the expiration date, they'd routinely run out.

The result of laws like this is not that the store will never buy too much, it’s that when they do buy too much they will give it away to somewhere it can be used instead of destroying it. It will not cost them much if any more to simply give things to food banks or charity shops.

It's not so easy to give things away at scale. If someone deposited 500 kilograms of assorted meat products outside your front door right now, with a note attached saying they need to be consumed or frozen in the next 24 hours or they'll go bad, how much work would it take for you to deal with that?

Clothing is of course a bit easier to deal with (it'll still grow mildew if you don't protect it from moisture!), but the source link explicitly anticipates there will be some circumstances where it's impossible to give away clothing and authorizes destruction in that case.

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

#129
> 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).

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

#130

"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…

There is a lot more information about it here: https://environment.ec.europa.eu/strategy/circular-economy/e... , and the full (current) text being here: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A... As far as I can tell (although I'm no lawyer, sorry Nike), the point is to reduce waste and to increase recycled content in use. With these two main objectives, what Nike is doing seem to be fitting with…

What is considered recycling? Is convert the clothing into fuel pellets considered recycling? What about thermal decomposition for feedstocks for chemical manufacture (and what if 75% of the mass isn't useful for that and is instead burned in turbines for cogeneration)?

Down-cycling is a thing. Even aluminum and steel get down-cycled.

I have no sympathy for recycling fetishism.

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