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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

#231

Post by pySSK »

subscribed wrote: post #42
kwanbix wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe donate it to poor countries? When I used to work for the biggest ecommerce in europe, we had various stages for clothes. The last stage was selling the clothes by kilo to companies.

I don't think these companies want the poor people to wear their brand. They'll find another way to destroy them. 2018 article reports that Burberry destroyed £28 millions worth of clothes to keep their brand "exclusive": https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44885983

The intended effect of the law is that they get better at planning. It requires supply chain innovation similar to what happened in the automotive industry decades ago with JIT manufacturing. They can borrow from fast-fashion but now there’s a penalty for over producing.

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

#232

Post by binarymax »

cm2012 wrote: post #219
motbus3 wrote: post #204

I'm reading the comments and I get confused. I kinda think this is a good idea and it is not like the government is purely making it a 3rd party problem only. This might make production more complicated for a while, but nowadays it is much easier to predict demand and produce quicker in smaller batches. In the 90s you might need change a whole factory setting for every single piece of fabric but nowadays it is that m…

Essentially: unsold clothing is worth less than zero and recycling most clothing creates more emissions than it saves. So the law is forcing headache for nothing.

Or rather, since we know fast fashion is horrible because of the things you just said - it forces a more thoughtful approach to production.

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

#233

Post by elzbardico »

ericmcer wrote: post #218
motbus3 wrote: post #204

I'm reading the comments and I get confused. I kinda think this is a good idea and it is not like the government is purely making it a 3rd party problem only. This might make production more complicated for a while, but nowadays it is much easier to predict demand and produce quicker in smaller batches. In the 90s you might need change a whole factory setting for every single piece of fabric but nowadays it is that m…

It would not be a good idea because the goal of companies are not to get you to consume only what you need, they want you to consume more. You should check out "Ascension" (it is on Paramount unfortunately). It gives a pretty close up look at China and factory culture and how their entire country is mobilized to push maximum consumption. The corporation's don't view Americans high per-capita consumption as a problem…

It is ok companies think like that. It is not ok we let them do it without any limits or regulations. We just need to be careful with unintended side effects and tighten the controls carefully

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

#234

Post by Y-bar »

Seattle3503 wrote: post #142
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.

Carbon is not the only concern here, it is also excessive water use, excessive land use, higher logistics pressure on ports and such which can be reduced if these are made to a higher quality and a reduced quantity.

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

#235

Post by teraflop »

cm2012 wrote: post #219
motbus3 wrote: post #204

I'm reading the comments and I get confused. I kinda think this is a good idea and it is not like the government is purely making it a 3rd party problem only. This might make production more complicated for a while, but nowadays it is much easier to predict demand and produce quicker in smaller batches. In the 90s you might need change a whole factory setting for every single piece of fabric but nowadays it is that m…

Essentially: unsold clothing is worth less than zero and recycling most clothing creates more emissions than it saves. So the law is forcing headache for nothing.

If companies are taking raw materials worth more than zero, and turning them into clothing worth less than zero, then I think deterring them from doing that is beneficial to society overall.

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

#236

Post by Galanwe »

whateverboat wrote: post #15
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?

Donations would already be a great thing. This law makes it feasible in boardrooms to justify donations. Donations to shelters, developing countries and otherwise.

My wife worked for a cloth upcycling association (finding sustainable future for discarded clothes).

Reality is, there is just 10x more thrown out clothes in the west that any third world country on earth could need, same for shelters.

Associations distributing clothes to developing countries / shelters are filtering tightly what they accept.

In short, the vast majority of thrown out clothes in the west are just crapwear that not even the third world want. There are entire pipelines of filtering and sorting to only keep and distribute the good quality clothes.

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

#237

Post by ragall »

anymouse123456 wrote: post #189

It’s shocking to see this legislated. As if companies are just out here wantonly destroying otherwise valuable goods that could have been easily sold at a profit instead. I guarantee this problem is far more complex and troublesome than the bureaucrats would ever understand, much less believe, yet they have no problem piling on yet another needless regulatory burden.

They quite clearly are. Burberry was caught a while ago https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44885983, but it's well known that every major upmarket brand was doing it to avoid the loss of prestige of sending the items to outlets.

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

#238

Post by [deleted] »

throw3e98 wrote: post #122
peterfirefly wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fashion? No, absolutely not. Textiles in general? Maybe, but almost certainly not. This is the actual quote on the page you cite: "Today, the combined textile and apparel sectors contribute as much as 8–10% of global greenhouse gas emissions." Notice the unusual way they spell "fashion"...

Right, textiles are much bigger than fashion - bedding, furniture upholstery, curtains, some types of shelter, practical items like footwear, protective equipment, medical equipment and dressings, vehicle interiors... pretty much all aspects of human life depend on textiles. It ain't just cheap t shirts and dresses.

[deleted]

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

#240

Post by vanviegen »

cm2012 wrote: post #219
motbus3 wrote: post #204

I'm reading the comments and I get confused. I kinda think this is a good idea and it is not like the government is purely making it a 3rd party problem only. This might make production more complicated for a while, but nowadays it is much easier to predict demand and produce quicker in smaller batches. In the 90s you might need change a whole factory setting for every single piece of fabric but nowadays it is that m…

Essentially: unsold clothing is worth less than zero and recycling most clothing creates more emissions than it saves. So the law is forcing headache for nothing.

Discouraging superfluous production is not nothing.
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