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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

#261

Post by charlieyu1 »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #136
IneffablePigeon wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People eating donated bananas are not buying bananas if there are none available for free. They are just not eating bananas.

Unfortunately, there is an issue with food pantries where people who are not in need use them because free food. People can be shameless. It is a minority but still too common and doesn't come with the stigma it deserves in some places. In Seattle, I've even heard a few anecdotes of people trying to resell food from the food pantries. This behavior does impact prices in the normal market at the margin, particularly i…

In UK there is an app called Too Good To Go where you can buy food for about one third of normal price when they are near expiry. As the name implies, there is no particular stigma about using it, you are helping to reduce food waste. It’s often some form of advertisement too

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

#262

Post by esterna »

dash2 wrote: post #210
nairboon wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or (c) lower the price to the market clearing price point and your clothes will be gone.

You're assuming there is such a price! Charity shops throw out the majority of clothes they are given: some things just will never sell.[1] [1] https://theclothingbank.org.uk/what-happens-to-the-clothes-y...

Once once they are rejected by charities, they can be destroyed just like before this law. EU regulators are flawed humans, but you can be assured that any argument you can come up with in 10 minutes has been considered.

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

#263

Post by wolvoleo »

csydas wrote: post #185
graemep wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but those laws are pretty effective. They do deter murderers and thieves, and take them out of society so they cannot repeat their offences. Ill thought out regulations can make things worse - I am convinced this is the case for the UK's Online Safety Act, for example. That (and the proposed ban on social media for under 16s) is also promoted on "we must do something" grounds. I am very much in favour of some pr…

>Yes, but those laws are pretty effective. They do deter murderers and thieves This is really not true at all for violent crimes. Acts of violence are not really done by rational actors, same with many crimes. The death penalty / life in prison does not deter someone who has already decided that violence is an acceptable response to situations, and the story is similar with non-violent crimes; deterrence isn't really…

Yeah I think we should also move from giving financial penalties to bad corporate actors, to custodial sentences to their top execs and board members. If their own safety and livelyhood is at stake they will be a lot more careful. If we just fine the company they'll just take it as an extra cost in their business equation.

After all these people often say they deserve the high pay due to the high responsibility they have. But they don't, really. They screw up and they get a golden parachute. It was really sickening how the top of volkswagen got off scot-free after doing this calculated manipulation of their diesels. The buck should stop there. They blamed their lower engineers but it's not fair, either the top did know (the most likely option IMO) or they set such unattainable goals for their lower staff that they had no choice but to do this. Either way, it is the top's fault.

And indeed, the goal of the EU is to minimise fast-fashion. I have to say the quality of Shein stuff is also awful which makes these things something you buy and wear two or three times before they rip. Especially with the kind of stuff I buy.

I tend to buy handmade pieces that last me for years if you look after them. Made from real materials by craftspeople. I spend 100-200 euro on one but they really stand out between all the cheap shein/temu crap.

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

#264

Post by jandrewrogers »

palata wrote: post #221
toast0 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. But in some cases the waste will be avoided by not doing a production run at all if the minimum production quantity is too high and the law prohibits destroying the unwanted product.

I just don't get how it is cheaper in total to produce more units and throw them away. If you make more units, it's cheaper per unit . But doesn't it mean that waste is always a loss?

The direct cost of manufacturing the units is only a small percentage of the total costs of the retail product. Logistics is often a bigger cost. You can create substantial economic efficiencies elsewhere in the supply chain by allowing some manufacturing waste.

Production processes that require more production and supply chain customization for each order have significantly higher costs that need to be amortized. It is cheaper to pack and ship identical boxes at the factory than to customize the contents and logistics of each box for every retailer or customer. The more variation and complexity you allow into the supply chain, the more capital infrastructure, equipment, and people you need, all of which must be amortized into the retail unit cost.

The costs of increased supply chain variability and customizability can easily exceed the cost of wasting a few units. You may have wasted hundreds of t-shirts but you also didn't have to invest the millions of dollars in systems and equipment that would have prevented that waste. These are low-margin businesses, everyone is carefully tracking and attributing these costs.

Supply chains in most industries continuously and ruthlessly optimize to squeeze out waste while trying to increase flexibility. The number of items that are produced on demand -- and therefore produce little waste -- has grown dramatically over the last couple decades. However, many goods intrinsically have long, slow supply chains which makes waste all but unavoidable.

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

#265

Post by mnewme »

altairprime wrote: post #189
cbmuser wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You haven’t dealt with German bureaucracy then.

> You haven’t dealt with German bureaucracy then. ‘Europe’ is not substitutable by ‘Germany’: a one state counter-example does not substantiate a disproof of a union. Texas is not representative of how U.S. patent law works. Florida is not representative of how U.S. business regulation works. So, the recent HN post about German incorporation slowness fails, in isolation, to disprove the claim above that the US is mor…

Exactly this! People compare to Europe as a whole when convenient and then cherry pick when it is inconvenient

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

#266

Post by mnewme »

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…

I have lived both in the US and two European countries. Food quality is not even on the same scale. So much better in Europe, you can’t even compare, no wonder life expectancy is higher.

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

#267

Post by r3trohack3r »

DangitBobby wrote: post #247
r3trohack3r wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure you can oppose slavery and support what GP said without significant cognitive dissonance

Not really. It's a race to the bottom.

Many options.

Option 1: “we won’t trade humans as slaves at all costs, even if it makes us less competitive in the global market - and we don’t hold that conviction about other things”

Option 2: “We won’t trade slaves - and if we find you trading slaves we will kill you. So we don’t have to worry about competing against slaves in the global marketplace.”

Option 3: “slavery is less efficient than having the same people as market participants - so I don’t consider giving up slaves to be less competitive”

Many more options, and mixtures of any or all of them.

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

#268

Post by maccard »

altairprime wrote: post #205
maccard wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did a remodel last year. I filled 2 largeskips by the end of it. This is the first large job this house has had in 10 years, and it’s a 130 year old house. The cafe at the bottom of my street has roughly that amount of waste collected every 2 weeks - they fill their commercial trash bin every 2 days. I don’t know how much of that is waste vs old food but they generate orders of magnitude more waste than I do even w…

The EU has targeted foodservice with regulation as well, though it’s phased much more slowly (2030) than the clothing law was: https://food.ec.europa.eu/food-safety/food-waste/eu-food-was... Here, too, they consider “stop overproducing” to be the biggest problem on the pyramid. I’m not as familiar with this effort (nor if it, or any related initiative, affects to-go / disposal-ware) but one can reasonably imagine the…

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 global situation than halving domestic waste in the UK.

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

#269

Post by UltraSane »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #259
UltraSane wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the two are generally unrelated" This is some truly bizarre logic. The perfectly good food being thrown away can be given to the hungry for free since the company is saying it has no value if they are willing to throw it away. You seem to be intentionally misunderstanding this basic logic.

Who packs it up? Who finds the hungry? Who reviews their financial situation? Who delivers it? Alternatively, do you imagine anyone can walk into the store and get it, and decide if they feel like paying today at the register?

"do you imagine anyone can walk into the store and get it"

YES, BECAUSE THEY WERE GOING TO THROW IT AWAY! You would prefer to see edible food being wasted instead of eaten? That is very weird.

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

#270

Post by groundzeros2015 »

UltraSane wrote: post #269
s1artibartfast wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who packs it up? Who finds the hungry? Who reviews their financial situation? Who delivers it? Alternatively, do you imagine anyone can walk into the store and get it, and decide if they feel like paying today at the register?

"do you imagine anyone can walk into the store and get it" YES, BECAUSE THEY WERE GOING TO THROW IT AWAY! You would prefer to see edible food being wasted instead of eaten? That is very weird.

You have some cultural beliefs about food being of special reverence which is not reflected in its utility and cost.
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