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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

#851

Post by elil17 »

tjansen wrote: post #708
elil17 wrote: post #667

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they destroy the clothes instead of selling them to consumers? Developing countries already have huge markets for selling, altering, and repairing second-hand clothing that gets sent by thrift shops in developed countries. If anything this would be displacing lower quality used clothing (often graphic t-shirts) that currently makes up a large part of the textile markets in developing nations.

The kind of clothes we're talking about are not regular clothes. It's the unsellable kind. When H&M is doing a big sale, order the clothes by price, lowest price first. You will find stuff so hideous that they can't even sell it for four bucks. That's what I would expect most of the disposed clothing to look like.

Then maybe this will make it more expensive for them to do that (which would be good because it's a bad thing to have been doing)

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

#852

Post by simianparrot »

ahartmetz wrote: post #696
simianparrot wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same as when the EU puts a ton of restrictions on farmers within the EU countries -- Co2, fertiliser requirements, etc. -- making food so expensive to produce many go out of business and the remainder become practically luxury food, and then countries just end up having to import food from countries outside the EU _without_ those restrictions, simply offloading the environmental burden on "some other countries somewh…

Food is actually pretty cheap in the EU (in absolute prices compared to the US and relative to income compared to most other places), so I don't know what you mean.

You're not contradicting me. Read it again.

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

#853

Post by mulmen »

quotemstr wrote: post #848
mulmen wrote: post #837

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The unaccounted externality is the wasted energy to create a thing and destroy it without ever using it. This may be profit maximizing because it maintains the exclusivity of the brand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good

And you presume to know better than they do what to do with that energy? Do you think you have a general right to override people's resource allocation decisions when you believe they're being wasteful?

> Do you think you have a general right to override people's resource allocation decisions when you believe they're being wasteful?

Me personally? No, of course not. But I do think our government has the responsibility to govern.

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

#854

Post by GreenWatermelon »

BurningFrog wrote: post #821
digiown wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the recipient of that donation, why would I actually destroy it when I can sell it?

If the manufacturer can't sell their product, why would someone else be able to?

It's not that the manufacturer can't sell their product, it's that they don't want to do so. They want to get rid of last season's perfectly good product to make room for next season's lineup.

They could sell old stock ay reduced prices and still make profits, but they want to maintain their vain exclusive image, so they inflate their prices by destroying stock.

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

#855

Post by GreenWatermelon »

skeptic_ai wrote: post #608
8note wrote: post #597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sure, but within an EU context, the company should still get fined as if they destroyed it themselves

How do you know was destroyed when all official records say it’s recycled?

By investigating said recycling process? I mean, if a company can figure out that vendo X is a shadowy cloth-destruction syndicate, that state can as well, then that vendor can be banned from doing business in the EU or the companies dealing with them can be fined.

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

#856

Post by GreenWatermelon »

pembrook wrote: post #654
digiown wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brand-name clothes is not really a commodity, and there is nothing efficient about destroying inventory (at scale, destroying small returns might be efficient). The brand name is a psychological trick that transforms commodity items into premium products, and supply control (destruction) seeks to gatekeep the brand and maintain that image. It works because the cost of the textiles is a small fraction of their retail…

That’s not what will happen. You will not be seeing Chanel at the local discounter. And for non-luxury brands this law will simply increase costs for companies operating in the EU and therefore cause people to spend more on clothes.

Parent painted a very logical sequence of events that concluded in reduced prices. Can you provide similar reasoning for why you believe this law will increase costs?

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

#857

Post by GreenWatermelon »

phyzix5761 wrote: post #485

If manufacturers are banned from destroying unsold clothing won't they respond by producing less to avoid excess inventory? And if supply decreases while demand stays the same wouldn't that push prices up for everyone?

This is still a good outcome. Less waste and trash being thrown out is good.

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

#858

Post by GreenWatermelon »

amelius wrote: post #95

Companies' response: we'll just sew these unsold clothes into a large curtain, which is not apparel so we can then just burn it.

Such obvious mockeries of law usually don't pass in court. The jusdge will easily see that the company intended to destroy the objects.

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

#859

Post by vrighter »

randomtoast wrote: post #772
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…

"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. I don't see any cynicism here, only pure realism. The real question is why EU law tries to create a utopia on paper while ignoring real-world situati…

In fact, there is precedent for this kind of thing too.

Plastic used to be shipped to china and burned there, until china decided to stop accepting everyone else's trash

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

#860

Post by troad »

ragall wrote: post #843
troad wrote: post #839

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The presumption of good faith is wasted on them. That's just assholery masquerading as enlightenment. > 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. Maybe if you call the majority stupid some more, that's famously convincing in a democracy. You'll definitely build…

Who did I call stupid (except for you personally ?). The current owners are not stupid, they're self-interested, hypocritical and parassitical.

And they love your style of politics for being profoundly unthreatening to them.
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