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

environment.ec.europa.eu

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

#301

Post by petre »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #209
altairprime wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding ‘wealth signaling’, a similar lens to mine would be ‘brand dilution’, which is certainly a more widely-accepted concept in business management; see also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48959809 The EU has disagreed with Nike, and the law is now in effect.

The law is indeed in effect. Perhaps the new supply will revitalize Nike's Refurbished program, and European consumers will buy lots of used sneakers at discount prices. My bet is that it will not, and they'll mostly buy a slightly lower supply of new shoes that were made more expensive to cover the costs of refurbishing everything. I do agree that this law will have a more meaningful effect on luxury clothing brands…

Domestic EU manufacturers like Intex and H&M wanted the EU do something about the fast fashion Temu and Shein brands. And they did.

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

#302

Post by petre »

altairprime wrote: post #154
embedding-shape wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From previously linked text: > The concept of destruction as outlined in this Regulation should cover the last three activities on the waste hierarchy, namely recycling, other recovery and disposal. Preparation for reuse, including refurbishment and remanufacturing, should not be considered destruction. Preventing destruction will reduce the environmental impact of those products by reducing the generation of waste a…

To clarify without using the word ‘waste’ into two simple bullets: 1. Destruction is conversion of any usable product X to any non-X form (even if the new form is usable). 2. Destruction is prohibited (for large businesses, right now). Usable is not perfectly defined and will be a judgment call, but one can construct a common sense set of ‘what is unusable?’ definitions that an inspector or judge would accept — so lo…

> Note that, for example, the EU is likely to say ‘launder it first, then donate it’

That's great because it will put pressure on manufacturers to build launderable clothing.

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

#303

Post by petre »

nerdyadventurer wrote: post #289

Hope they do not dump it on Africa just like US and UK doing. - https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/jun/05/y... - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/18/discarded-clot... - https://www.youtube.com/shorts/HTrOmJpJjg4

That's exactly what they'll do. Establish charities to enable dumping the unsold clothong outside of the EU.

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

#304

Post by warumdarum »

azan_ wrote: post #198
warumdarum wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Socialist micromanaging you say? You should see what those maniacs do with there farmers. The job has literally turned into bureaucrat who ocassionally works a field as hobby.

Well yes, farming in European Union is pretty much eu-funded hobby. For good reasons of course (food security etc), but if European protectionism and donations were gone, farmers would be much worse off.

You still dont get the realities of climate change, do you? The world you want centralize micromanaged for the greater good, is going into locally different wild swings preventing local production of goods if not adapting and improvising locally on a add hoc basis. This is a starvation machine on which poorer parts of the world depend, disguised as a park management.

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

#305

Post by rsynnott »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #202
mnewme wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This whole story that Europe suffers from overregulation is just in parts true, and mainly lazy thinking. In fact there was a study by an American law school that came to the conclusion that the US has more bureaucracy than many European countries… Recommended read: https://www.andybudd.com/archives/2026/04/the-lazy-myth-that...

I don't really find this article persuasive. To pick out a good example of why: > The debate around chlorinated chicken was never really just about chicken. It became a symbol of something larger: the fear that “market access” would become a polite way of saying, “please lower your food and safety standards so our companies can sell more easily into your market.” You can dismiss that as protectionism if you like. Fro…

> Chemical washing of chicken is a safe and effective way to reduce pathogens.

This is actually somewhat controversial. It definitely messes with standard in vitro bacteria counts. However, there's some evidence that this is more a measurement problem than anything else (for instance https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/26/chicken-health...).

Salmonella's particularly problematic here because for many strains the infectious dose is _tiny_, potentially as low as 1000 bacteria.

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

#306

Post by rsynnott »

cbmuser wrote: post #199
dinfinity wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? What is the proof for that? I think we've seen time and time again that self-regulation of the industry doesn't work and that businesses will gladly fuck over society if they can get away with it and make more money. Usually that behavior is even defended with saying "Well, it's not their responsibility to solve society's issues. They are there to make money." Barring nationalization of an industry, heavy regu…

»If some businesses get killed in the process, so be it.« The problem with this attitude is that the rest of the world often doesn’t have these strict regulations and as result, businesses aren’t killed but just leaving the country.

... Wait, are you suggesting that no-one will want to sell clothes in Europe? Like, this regulation pretty much entirely impacts companies who sell clothes to consumers.

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

#307

Post by azan_ »

warumdarum wrote: post #304
azan_ wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well yes, farming in European Union is pretty much eu-funded hobby. For good reasons of course (food security etc), but if European protectionism and donations were gone, farmers would be much worse off.

You still dont get the realities of climate change, do you? The world you want centralize micromanaged for the greater good, is going into locally different wild swings preventing local production of goods if not adapting and improvising locally on a add hoc basis. This is a starvation machine on which poorer parts of the world depend, disguised as a park management.

What? Did you mean to write it to someone else?

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

#308

Post by maccard »

altairprime wrote: post #276
maccard wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure - but my point is that the waste by businesses absolutely dwarves domestic waste. I used to work in a shop, and we “recycled” (LDPE so not recyclable) more plastic in a week than I have used in the 10 years since I worked there. I’m not saying that individuals have no impact; our habits are absolutely important and we influence industry. But moving the needle on industry waste will have a more significant on the…

The EU seems to agree: the 2030 target, set in 2025, requires a reduction of “10%, in processing and manufacturing” which will probably have an oversized impact on waste in actual kilos reduced, relative to the combined retail-domestic target.

Yeah - I agree. It’s also still sad to see that we are beholden to industries dragging their feet. A 10% reduction in 5 years isn’t enough, but they will claim difficulties and issues in the scale. Yet when Covid hit, or AI came on the scene, companies showed they had no problem conforming when forced.

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

#309

Post by altairprime »

maccard wrote: post #308
altairprime wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU seems to agree: the 2030 target, set in 2025, requires a reduction of “10%, in processing and manufacturing” which will probably have an oversized impact on waste in actual kilos reduced, relative to the combined retail-domestic target.

Yeah - I agree. It’s also still sad to see that we are beholden to industries dragging their feet. A 10% reduction in 5 years isn’t enough, but they will claim difficulties and issues in the scale. Yet when Covid hit, or AI came on the scene, companies showed they had no problem conforming when forced.

The EU-wide 10% reduction in 5 years is a union-level response to the member states failing to make consistent and timely progress towards the 50% reduction target, replacing unenforced targets with enforced ones:

> food waste generation is not decreasing as required to make significant progress towards Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 12.3 [which] calls for halving per capita global food waste at retail and consumer level

Sadly, their general analysis found that:

> for most companies, for every $1 invested in reducing food waste, they saved $14 or more

And another in restaurants specifically found a median of $1 invested, $6 saved; so this is an unusual case where businesses are ignoring potential profit gains. The industry-specific analysis found "that food waste is not typically measured as part of a restaurant’s standard operating procedures" and "that information is not always communicated back to food service teams", with the outliers who had prevented their food waste having all implemented those exact two things:

The business case for reducing food loss and waste: Restaurants (2019) https://food.ec.europa.eu/document/download/a618c472-602e-45...

Blame for this issue is placed squarely, and deservedly, on management rather than line workers (who often spoke up and were disregarded) for failing to make this a priority over competing interests. Once the EU intervened and offered small investments to bait managers into compliance — "average cost to invest in food waste reduction was only 0.4 percent of annual food sales" — food waste dropped by +/-50% and total COGS dropped by 2%.

One of their test companies was IKEA, which saw -20% waste in 12 weeks; 3 years later, IKEA crossed the -50% waste threshold voluntarily.

So I think that a large part of this is that trickle-down voluntary regulation doesn't work: the EU didn't issue binding regulations onto its states, so the states were unreliable at delivering meaningful regulations to their industries, so the businesses were unreliable at realizing or caring about 'investing in future cost savings' when they see only drawbacks in direct staffing costs and temporary reductions in service efficiency for process redevelopment.

Glad to see the EU hold the states' feet to the fire on this all. They started with food and apparel, but once those are being properly addressed there's more waiting :)

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

#310

Post by altairprime »

petre wrote: post #301
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law is indeed in effect. Perhaps the new supply will revitalize Nike's Refurbished program, and European consumers will buy lots of used sneakers at discount prices. My bet is that it will not, and they'll mostly buy a slightly lower supply of new shoes that were made more expensive to cover the costs of refurbishing everything. I do agree that this law will have a more meaningful effect on luxury clothing brands…

Domestic EU manufacturers like Intex and H&M wanted the EU do something about the fast fashion Temu and Shein brands. And they did.

[dead]
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