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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

#141

Post by idopmstuff »

jwr wrote: post #118
Aurornis wrote: post #35

In my experience in other physical goods industries (not textiles specifically) there is a big difference between products that are good but aren’t ever sold for some reason and products that are deemed not sellable for some reason. For example, if a custom returns a product that was opened but they claim was never used (worn in this case) you can’t sell it to someone else as a new item. With physical products these…

> 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…

No, because even if they're not sold as new (which as others have commented is often not the case), they're still competing with you for sales. Someone who would have paid full price for a new one instead gets a version with a slight issue at 25% off. That's fine if you're the one selling it at a discount, but here you've lost money on the production and are now losing even more money because you've lost a sale of a full price unit.

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

#142

Post by Seattle3503 »

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?

It seems like countries will do anything but tax carbon.

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

#144

Post by ch4s3 »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #76
ch4s3 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Clothing has a huge profit margin (when manufactured overseas) especially at the higher end (for brands which do not invest in local production, which is most, because it is also hard to beat Chinese quality). It's better for these brands to over-produce on some items and lose the low-cost inventory, than to under-produce and not meet market demand, to not offer a range of sizes and varieties to meet individual taste…

I get he economics, but I don’t think it follows that it’s a problem governments need to involve themselves in.

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

#145

Post by em-bee »

JasonADrury wrote: post #97
ch4s3 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

A factory might have a minimum order quantity of 10000 units for a product. The products cost $1 landed. You know you can sell 4000 of those products for a total of $15k. This might become a bad deal if dealing with the 6000 extra units costs you money.

maybe this will force factories to change their process. with manufacturing getting cheaper, smaller batches become affordable. at the extreme we can now print books on demand, and improved 3D printing allows one-off items in many more areas. that's the trend we need to push. to get away from wasteful mass production.

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

#146

Post by JasonADrury »

xp84 wrote: post #140
JasonADrury wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, the EU is just introducing additional weighing in favor of smaller order quantities.

They are -- so I hope Europeans will remember this when they have more trouble finding the size and color they need. If you can't throw anything away you do have to underproduce to avoid being stuck with crap that no one wants, is illegal to throw away, and can't even be recycled (because that would be 'destroying' the clothes, wouldn't it?) So you have to underproduce always, and maybe not even make things that aren…

You can just donate them. If no one will take them, you are in fact allowed to destroy the products when it's "the option with the least negative environmental impacts".

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

#147

Post by ch4s3 »

grayhatter wrote: post #46
ch4s3 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Assume the legislation is trying to reduce a real problem

Why assume that? Could you not imagine that legislation is often meant to signal values to voters as much or more than it is intended to solve real problems.

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

#148

Post by m101 »

cm2012 wrote: post #96

Incredibly, unbelievably stupid law. Waste is made when something unwanted is created, not when it is thrown out. Destruction or landfill is often the best option for all involved and modern landfills are very safe and sustainable. I worked in recycled clothing for a few years and it is not always or even often efficient. This is forcing society to be inefficient to make some people feel a little better emotionally a…

good comment, but of course it's downvoted on hackernews

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

#149

Post by nine_k »

yread wrote: post #128
Aurornis wrote: post #35

In my experience in other physical goods industries (not textiles specifically) there is a big difference between products that are good but aren’t ever sold for some reason and products that are deemed not sellable for some reason. For example, if a custom returns a product that was opened but they claim was never used (worn in this case) you can’t sell it to someone else as a new item. With physical products these…

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.

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

#150

Post by xp84 »

WalterBright wrote: post #87
jjkaczor wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-...

> 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 the items, but at a lower price than the Earthly-produced items, which is easy since they have 100% margin.

2. Whether or not #1 happens, it becomes impractical to make any of these goods for a living, so people stop. Eventually, the factories are dismantled or simply crumble.

Now Earth is dependent on the aliens to keep sending the crates. If the aliens ever get wiped out, or just elect a populist who doesn't like to give aid to inferior planets, then we won't have any cars, or clothes, or computers.

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