Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

environment.ec.europa.eu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

801–810 of 894 posts

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

#801

Post by ragall »

anymouse123456 wrote: post #766
ragall wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't doubt that some luxury organizations destroy unsold inventory rather than allow it to diminish the status of their brand. My claim is that if they could have sold that inventory at a profit, they would have. It's theirs to do with as they please. They paid for it to be made. If you don't like how they run their business, don't buy the overpriced garbage they sell. People seem to be so concerned about external…

> My claim is that if they could have sold that inventory at a profit, they would have.

That's utterly incorrect. They don't just want profits - that would be easy to obtain by sending the merchandise to an outlet - they want high profits in a way that maintains high profits in the future too. Any discount "cheapens" the brand by giving customers the expectation of low(er) prices in the future.

> It's theirs to do with as they please.

Only within the bounds of the law.

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

#802

Post by ragall »

troad wrote: post #646
camillomiller wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you can try to reason with the people who post comments like the one you're responding to, but the truth is they are just there waiting for anything a regulator does to desparage it, defend corporate and capital, and change nothing about the status quo. The worst part is that they do it thinking they are so edgy for knowing exactly why just another piece of regulation will clearly not work. Funnily enough, the EU tra…

> you can try to reason with the people who post comments like the one you're responding to, but the truth is they are just there waiting for anything a regulator does to desparage it, defend corporate and capital, and change nothing about the status quo. The worst part is that they do it thinking they are so edgy for knowing exactly why just another piece of regulation will clearly not work. Funnily enough, the EU t…

> These are political disagreements with decades (sometimes centuries) of history, and unless you're fifteen years old, there's a better explanation for the fact that others disagree with you

The better explanation is that they have acquired their political tastes mindlessly and are now defending them in an equal manner. The presumption of good faith is wasted on them.

> The vast majority of people want what's best for their societies, and have different views as to how best achieve that goal, that arise from diverse life experiences.

That's incorrect. Just take a look at the housing situation in the US: what's best for society is to build, but a majority of the people (the current owners) are blocking that because it suits them.

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

#804

Post by CivBase »

Qwertious wrote: post #619
CivBase wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of whether they respect the law, why would a business pay for goods just to destroy them? How does that make money? And if they're NOT destroying the goods but are instead using them, then the law is doing exactly what it is intended to.

It's about maintaining exclusivity - if you sell your $100 T-shirt for $50 instead of $100, then it's a $50 T-shirt now. Even if they always cost less than $10 to make. It's degenerate bullshit so I'm all for the EU banning it, but there is a business rationale.

I understand why a the original manufacturer might want to destroy their remaining stock to keep up an inflated perceived value. What I don't understand is why the business buying the remaining stock would want to do the same.

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

#805

Post by touwer »

nonethewiser wrote: post #784
touwer wrote: post #775

Every time again when it's about Europe, there are lots of commenters here complaining about the Eu or the rules, probably a lot of US commenters aping MAGA sentiments. Of course without solving the problem this law tries to solve. It's soooo easy to complain about something you know nothing about. As if the US is perfect

What does this post have to do with the United States?

I wrote about the comments, not about the post

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

#807

Post by gzread »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #712
hilbert42 wrote: post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"So instead of destroying those clothes in Europe, we'll just add an unnecessary shipping step to the process, producing tons of unnecessary CO2." The world being as it is you're likely correct and your cynicism makes sense, but I'd like to think somehow you're wrong. That EU regulators actually saw need for such regulations makes me both sad and annoyed because they ought not be necessary. What's wrong with clothing…

> but I'd like to think somehow you're wrong. It’s what already happens with recycling in Europe, it’s resold several times to companies claiming to recycle it and ends up shipped to the poor parts of South East Asia and burned or dumped.

Is Europe punishing these companies when they get discovered?

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

#808

Post by mulmen »

quotemstr wrote: post #792
OrangeMusic wrote: post #659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look it's not that hard. Is (in this case, pollution) a problem that needs solving? If the answer is yes, then it needs to be regulated even if you personally don't like laws. Sorry!

Why is a problem? Because you say so? If it's such a problem, why is it so cheap to do? What cost is unaccounted?

By definition externality is not priced in by the market.

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

#809

Post by ldng »

appreciatorBus wrote: post #482
bonzini wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original comment says "sell them to «resale» companies". Selling goods means being paid for it, while you and the parent comment are both saying money goes in the opposite direction.

When you negotiate the price to ”sell” at, it’s perfectly legitimate for that price to be negative.

I don't think you can sell at loss in Europe (not sure, happy to be corrected), so might be small but it'll still be positive. The bet is it will be high enough to be a deterrent. The other bet is that at some point the rest of the world will push back being a corporate dumpster.

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

#810

Post by mulmen »

quotemstr wrote: post #791
Atreiden wrote: post #742

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you under the impression that the planet has effectively infinite carrying capacity and ability to support an "optimal market" indefinitely?

I am of the opinion that markets and prices, not EU regulators, should tell us where scarcity is. We're bad at optimizing manually for the same reason we're bad at guessing where program hotspots are. The market is a profiler.

Do you honestly believe this? Where did you study economics? This regulation is not about scarcity. It is about over abundance.

Overproduction is a failure mode in capitalist systems. The market can’t correct for this because negative externalities do not feed back into supply or demand.

Post reply on HN