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

environment.ec.europa.eu

171–180 of 894 posts

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

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I buy mostly from liquidators, where everything is sold as-is, but that doesn't stop end users from trying to make a claim, so many manufacturers often have methods for marking items that are not covered by the warranty. For example, Ryobi brands the items with a plastic welder, leaving a tell-tale wavy mark. A robust liquidation market does a lot to prevent waste, and it reduces the cost of living for those who part…

> so many manufacturers often have methods for marking items that are not covered by the warranty With textiles this is usually a hole punch or something with the tag. With hardware we had the serial number recorded. But consumers don’t care. If they buy something from a vendor they think is selling them something as new and the vendor tells them to go the manufacturer, the customer doesn’t care that you marked it as…

> ... the vendor tells them to go the manufacturer...

Maybe this is the problem. Retailers should cover the statutory warranty on any product they sell.

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

#172
For some of these things I wonder if there are missing recyclable options. Like could you economically run a pile of defective clothing through a blender and and use it as fiber reinforcement in some kind of construction material or insulation?

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

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So they’ll donate it to someone who will then destroy it.

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.

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

#175
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…

How feasible is to remove tag, scratch serial number?

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

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can steer where donations go with regulations. I don't see any downsides of warm coats to homeless shelters for example.

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.

[deleted]

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

#177
This is part of the European Green Deal. The link isn't clear about it but it's not a new rule that we can't destroy unsold textiles. That rule is from 2024. This is about some finer details and fixes to the 2024 rules.

The 2024 rules are from just before the European Elections, probably in the hope that the unusually red/green European Parliament 2019-2024 (the 9th European Parliament) could get more votes. Von der Leyen also basically had to sell her soul to get enough votes from the red/green parties to get elected, which had a large impact on the way her first Commission operated.

Unfortunately (for them), the 10th European Parliament (the current one) is a lot less red/green. Most member states have also realized that we have a lot of "environmental" regulation that is expensive without helping the environment much (and some cases harming it). We are already in the process of rolling some of it back. Maybe this particular regulation will also be rolled back during the 10th European Parliament.

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The linked page has this text:

"Every year in Europe, an estimated 4-9% of unsold textiles are destroyed before ever being worn. This waste generates around 5.6 million tons of CO2 emissions – almost equal to Sweden’s total net emissions in 2021."

Really? The waste in terms of destroyed unsold textiles generates the same CO₂ emissions as Sweden in 2021? Sweden has a population of around 10 million = a bit more than 2% of the EU (I'm still mentally using the pre-Brexit half a billion number). It has lower CO₂ emissions per capita than most member states due to it having hydropower and nuclear power, but still... call it a round 1% of the total EU CO₂ emissions in round Fermi numbers.

The remaining 91-96% would presumably also generate CO₂ emissions -- 11-20 times as much, in other words roughly 11-20% of the EU CO₂ emissions. Concrete, bricks, heating, agriculture, chemical plants, commuting, etc. all have to share the remaining 80-91%.

I don't think that is very believable.

(A lot of the strangeness comes from using "total net emissions" which allows Sweden's number to go from around 30 million tons to apparently 6-7 million tons. Using the doctored number here makes the textile destruction appear much more wasteful than it really is, especially since the burning of said textiles can easily produce electricity and district heating.)

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

#180

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.

For the same reason tax codes are complex. If you have a simple law, there's no way for a politician to say to a group of people: "If you vote for me, I will get you a special favour".
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