EU ban on destruction of unsold clothes and shoes enters into application • Hacker News Board

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

#171

Post by altairprime » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 6:34 PM UTC

nieksand wrote: post #36

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

Yes, this will likely exacerbate that further in the short-term: if retailers simply stop producing outlier sizes to reduce disposal of those sizes, then various niches will open up. In US women’s flats, very few go up to size 12+ (it’s already higher-cost to make products in outlier sizes and most don’t!) and so the one retailer (agaik) that offers that size has 100% market share, and keeps an inventory warehouse of unsold product that is listed until it sells at up to 80% discounts after a year-plus on the shelf. Another handful of retailers specialize exclusively in women’s clothing for people XL and above, which allows them to profit equally as well from less-common sizes.

My hope, however, is that this reduces overseas manufacturing in favor of domestic, which would allow retailers to dramatically reduce the shipping costs for small production batches, so that they’re able to simply produce more small batches of less-common sizes in response to demand. Sure, they might see a few percent lower profits per item, but they’ll be able to sell considerably more of their product simply by raising their supply to meet demand with finer granularity than the cheaper ‘produce an entire season one-time only and store it in a cargo container’ model offers today.

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

#172

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 6:34 PM UTC

rzwitserloot wrote: post #163

loeg wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It in fact does cost them more to give things than to destroy them.

... and it costs society more to process the destroyed waste, and it costs society more to then deal with the fallout of shelters not having enough clothes. Or not. Who knows. The point is, this 'economically it is more efficient' is not a proven case because the externalities need to be taken into account, and so far the person I've been responding to seems to not understand this part, or is ignoring it.

I'm not sure everyone in the conversation is understanding each other. Saying the waste is pointless implies to me that it has no value, that companies could eliminate it with small costs and no other tradeoffs and they just don't want to bother. That's not accurate; a system with no oversupply is necessarily a system with fewer choices and more shortages.

The tradeoff may be worth it in some contexts, but if you don't understand that there are tradeoffs, you're going end up proposing silly policies like the original commenter's idea that nobody should ever be allowed to destroy any object a consumer could use.

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

#173

Post by gib444 » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 6:35 PM UTC

thefourthchime wrote: post #146

sajithdilshan wrote: post #87

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

The EU is doing everything it can to fail. The only thing that seems to be coming out of the EU in the last 20 years is regulation. It seems to be its only invention and contribution to itself. They have no upper bounds on creativity when it comes to creating rules that disrupt business. I can't tell if this is coming from jealousy or incompetence—or perhaps a combination of both. They see the rest of the world, espe…

This is some top-tier bait

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

#174

Post by cbg0 » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 6:36 PM UTC

nieksand wrote: post #36

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

It can be made available online with a longer lead time if the manufacturers care enough about it. I guess it depends on whether the complexity is worth it, because if you're just selling cheap fast fashion then discounting/donating might still be worth it even if you produce excess, but more high-end brands probably won't stock uncommon sizes.

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

#175

Post by anonzzzies » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 6:37 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #96

anonzzzies wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I reuse everything from remodels. Seems a shame to throw out always. And other skips are getting bought by others to use in their building projects.

How do you reuse plaster or drywall walls/ceilings? I’m fairly reuse-friendly, but that stuff goes straight in the dumpster for practical reasons.

we fill anything that needs filling: the ground here is very uneven with massive rocks so you need to fill to even, you can empty containers of crap other people give away or pay a fortune.

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

#176

Post by altairprime » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 6:38 PM UTC

mpyne wrote: post #139

4ndrewl wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The invisible hand of the market will rectify this of course. Nothing to see here.

The invisible hand of the market has been handcuffed a bit here though. Though I imagine this will simply show up as higher cost rather than blanket inavailability.

If a charity sets up a ‘returned product classification’ flow and issues tax credits to companies donating their return flow to the charity, then companies can simply shunt returns to charity and lower their costs in triplicate: 1) changeover of return provider replaces expense with deduction; 2) compliance with EU regulations costs shipping to charity; 3) charity provides itemized receipts for compliance and further tax credits. Of course, companies won’t actually lower their prices to reflect the net reduction in costs, but it will certainly strip away the excuse that they must raise costs.

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

#177

Post by cbg0 » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 6:39 PM UTC

zkmon wrote: post #56

dgellow wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The state of perishable goods is much worse. A lot is dumped in food and short shelf-life items. Nothing can be done here. That’s already regulated in multiple countries

That's interesting. Mind telling how regulation would stop dumping of expired or unconsumed food and other stuff?

Supermarkets are forced to discount soon-to-expire items which go into "bargain bins".

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

#178

Post by HelloUsername » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 6:41 PM UTC

kps wrote: post #113

Saline9515 wrote: post #27

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

Now I'm imagining someone dumped in the river chained to a pallet of t-shirts rather than a cinder block.

in order to dispose of the socks

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

#179

Post by altairprime » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 6:45 PM UTC

ungreased0675 wrote: post #143

flowerbreeze wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems plausible. Less common sizes have a lower chance of being sold out, so if they can no longer be destroyed at the end and need to be further managed at lower quantities, it can become more cost effective to simply not make them. Whether it is true or not, I don't know.

Companies should have extensive data on how many of what size they can expect to sell.

The missing factor in cheap-fast fashion here is warehousing costs. Companies are shredding shoes and landfilling clothing — and underproducing relative to what they could sell — rather than paying money to store products in a warehouse. One possible outcome the EU sellers can choose is to reinvest in product storage, so that they can raise their production targets to meet demand rather than to minimize product storage — at which point there is a vast demand for outlier sizes that is, today, unmet due to the unwillingness to store anything.

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

#180

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 6:48 PM UTC

altairprime wrote: post #165

kelvinjps10 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't they have to make discounts or sell it therefore lowering the price.

Nike certainly could choose to sell at a discount rather than grind unsold shoes into rubber. They have a wealth-signal brand to maintain, however, so they will resist doing so if at all possible.

Is it really the case that Nike is a wealth signalling brand? In the investigation I think you're referring to (https://www.fastcompany.com/90697259/nike-appears-to-be-shre...), I find Nike's side of the story much more plausible: if they find in processing returns that a shoe appears to have been altered, they prefer to reuse the shoe materials for other purposes, rather than carefully inspecting individual shoes to analyze what the alterations are and whether they might compromise the shoe's performance.