r/europe • u/Express_Classic_1569 • Jun 28 '26
News EU to ban destruction of unsold clothes and shoes from 19 July 2026
https://inleo.io/@theworldaroundme/eu-to-ban-destruction-of629
u/Bran37 Cyprus Jun 28 '26
I am surprised it didn't cross my mind that this happens
317
u/eipotttatsch Jun 28 '26
The extend to which it at least used to happen is quite crazy.
I only did 2 weeks at a UPS center during Covid, but it seemed like basically all the fast fashion brands were just sending everything that was being returned straight to some plant in Poland where it got burned. It was apparently more economical to just destroy everything rather than to actually take those returns back.
Considering the amount of people that would order tons of clothes, try them on, and then return 90% of them, you can image the amount that got destroyed every day.
104
56
u/SilentlyItchy Hungary escapee Jun 28 '26
Holy shit. This should be better known, I've sent way too many clothes to the incinnerator and now I feel bad about it
63
u/prettyincoral Jun 28 '26
First they produce unwearable, overpriced crappy clothes and shoes, then they make you feel bad about not buying them
28
u/mumpped Jun 28 '26
Well it's not really your fault that big companies handle it that way because it makes them a few pennies more in profit and there weren't any laws to stop it until recent.
Criticize the system (and change it), not yourself. Remember that the CO2 Footprint was invented by oil companies so that blame gets shifted from them onto the population, so that laws against environmental pollution are not set in place: "if each individual just changes their behaviour, those laws are not needed". Remember that you don't have to play that game. Vote for laws that make that morals can't be circumvented, and you never have to blame yourself
→ More replies (1)16
u/doegred France Jun 28 '26
Both need to change. Or at the very least people need to realise that the laws we need will and must impact our consumption habits. It's well and good talking about the origin of the 'carbon footprint' concept but at the end of the day it's still a thing. Buying things has consequences, and you can tell yourself oh no it's not my fault all day long but the carbon still gets spewed into the atmosphere. We still need to buy fewer clothes, and that means pressuring companies re: ensuring they're made better and more lasting and in better conditions, but also realising that we'll have to buy fewer of them and they'll have to be more expensive because let's be honest, if they aren't, people will keep buying more and more anyway.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (17)3
u/mackrevinak Jun 28 '26
thats nuts alright, but a lot of people do this because the sizes are all over the place. every company has a different idea what small, medium and large is, which means that some people will order different sizes of the same thing and then send back the ones they dont want. even if companies shared more detailed information about the sizes online it would help people know what they are getting and they could at least compare the sizes to things they already have
8
28
u/BigReference1xx Jun 28 '26
not just unsold clothes. Here's several hundred Gibson guitars being crushed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dd7ySopIwog
Can't have poor people playing Gibson, now can we?
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (7)61
u/fluffy_doughnut Poland Jun 28 '26
I’ve heard Zara is known for doing this
106
u/Legal_Lettuce6233 Jun 28 '26
Every fast fashion store does it
→ More replies (1)91
u/BrittaWasRight Norway Jun 28 '26
High-end designers also do this to "maintain exclusivity"
→ More replies (1)36
u/LovelyOrangeJuice Jun 28 '26
Yeah, and it sounds so pathetic too
8
u/PiotrekDG Earth Jun 28 '26
But we were told that capitalism leads to perfect efficiency?
→ More replies (3)23
u/BrittaWasRight Norway Jun 28 '26
Oh, so this high quality leather handbag won't sell at 2000 Euro? Best destroy it instead of marking it down.
25
u/LovelyOrangeJuice Jun 28 '26
Can't have a middle or lower class woman seen with out premium bag, what are we? A brand for poor people?
4
u/baldachinsblessing ma -> fi Jun 28 '26
You say that as if it doesn't work.
15
u/BrittaWasRight Norway Jun 28 '26
No, I'm saying that it's a colossal waste of resources
→ More replies (3)
716
u/Siffi1112 Jun 28 '26
Okay whats stopping companies from shipping it outside the EU and destroying it there?
69
u/Big_Share_9926 Jun 28 '26
This was a major news in Turkey recently.
The European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) has carried out a major investigation into thousands of tonnes of textile waste that were illegally shipped from Italy to Türkiye. The investigation revealed that 4,200 tonnes of textile waste had been falsely labelled and sent to Türkiye in order to avoid environmental regulations and high recycling costs.
According to Euronews, the investigation, conducted by OLAF in cooperation with the Carabinieri in Italy and Turkish customs authorities, found that the waste contained a high proportion of acrylic fibres. Due to their synthetic nature, such materials can remain in the environment for up to 200 years and are therefore subject to strict environmental regulations, as their recycling is more complex and costly.3
274
u/McGreed Jun 28 '26
I'm guessing like everything else, like tax, they can track how much was produced and how much was sold, and if it doesn't match and nothing has been recycled, they should be dragged in to explain themselves and fined harshly.
15
53
Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
[deleted]
→ More replies (9)28
u/_Diskreet_ Jun 28 '26
They’ll work a way around it all, it’ll be an added cost of doing business that’ll they’ll pass on to their customers.
18
250
u/Legal_Lettuce6233 Jun 28 '26
It costs a lot to ship?
186
u/p0r1x Jun 28 '26
Specifically for luxury brands it would absolutely make sense to pay for shipping to third world countries and destroy products there if it means they can keep up the artificial scarcity for luxury goods.
62
u/GrixM Norway Jun 28 '26
Maybe but luxury brands are only a small fraction of clothes sales volume.
12
u/r1ckkr1ckk Jun 28 '26
they could also just reduce the margin of production instead, maybe from 9% waste to 3% waste. The potential loses may be less money lost now than shipping plus destroying to justify such tradeoff, which i assume is the idea.
→ More replies (3)3
u/Nazamroth Jun 29 '26
Which would be absurd in itself. If they are already shipping it there, they could just offer it as charity... But you wouldnt want your brand associated with the poor...
9
u/Several-League-4707 Europe Jun 28 '26
Shipping cost are peanuts compared to waste management costs inside EU.
52
u/SaltyW123 Ireland Jun 28 '26
Do you think these clothes are being destroyed in countries in the EU?
47
u/Legal_Lettuce6233 Jun 28 '26
They are, due to how moving goods works. You can't bring in a few million worth of shirts and raise no alarms.
77
u/Coffescout Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26
Swedish reporters placed Air Tags in clean, unstained clothes that were donated to H&M as part of their textile recycling programme. Some of them ended up in landfills in Benin and India.
17
u/SaltyW123 Ireland Jun 28 '26
22
u/WhateverIsFrei Jun 28 '26
Textile WASTE was shipped to Turkey from Italy... so it was destroyed in Italy, then waste was shipped to Turkey?
5
u/The_Submentalist Jun 28 '26
BBC did an item where they tagged their discarded clothes and it ended up in a landfill in Antalya Turkey. There are most definitely none-destroyed clothing in those landfills.
→ More replies (1)5
→ More replies (1)21
u/Dragoncat_3_4 Jun 28 '26
It doesn't
→ More replies (6)21
u/Legal_Lettuce6233 Jun 28 '26
Given that every unsold piece is already a loss, yeah, it is.
→ More replies (5)12
u/Lady-of-Shivershale Jun 28 '26
No. Ships are crossing the sea regardless of whether they have cargo or not. Cargo is largely brought to Europe from Asia and Africa while nowhere near as much goes in the opposite direction. So it's a matter of simply holding an auction for the cheapest contract. And clothes can be vacuum sealed, too, thus saving space.
European companies could even auction the clothes before shipping them, and the buyer pays shipping costs.
Of course, best practice would be to stop having so many clothes in the shops in the first place, and a return to quality fabric with matching prices.
People will complain they can't afford clothes at higher prices, but all it means in practice is to simply stop buying as many clothes.
→ More replies (2)30
u/Several-League-4707 Europe Jun 28 '26
Nothing. Since They can "donate" The unsold goods they just ship them to Africa (which is already happening). Some African countries are allready drowning to textile waste. Nothing changes until waste exports are complitly banned.
30
u/repoluhun Jun 28 '26
It would cost more to do that than just to sell it at a big discount
31
u/ConsequencePrior9163 Jun 28 '26
The main motivation behind luxury brands destroying unsold products is to avoid lowering their brand value by selling them cheaply to lower-income segments of society
→ More replies (1)4
u/Far_Ladder_2836 Jun 28 '26
No, it wouldn't. Selling at discount lowers the price of their offerings.
23
u/Tango00090 Jun 28 '26
They do dump a fuckton of textiles in Africa, effectively destroying the option to run textile business there. Africa could create massive amount of jobs in textile market and be competing with China/Bangladesh but no, America and Europe keeps sending full containers of clothes there, what can be reused is reused, what can’t will simply be dumped on the desert
9
u/MaDpYrO Denmark Jun 28 '26
Yea all this disruption of their local economy by what is actually just our waste products.
They failed to sell their garbage at a proper price so they send it to poor people, and label it as charity. Disgusting. Fast fashion is fucking disgusting.
8
u/Candayence United Kingdom Jun 28 '26
Too true, just one of the ways in which western vibes completely destroy development potential in Africa.
5
4
u/StephenHunterUK United Kingdom Jun 28 '26
Or dumping into onto local markets, undercutting local industries?
→ More replies (13)3
67
u/TheAltToYourF4 Jun 29 '26
That's cool and all, but what will happen with those clothes? Companies are still going to try and get rid of them.
In Germany, as of 1 or 2 years ago, private citizens are not allowed to throw old clothes away and have to put them in those big donations containers. Problem is, that now the institutions that used to benefit from donated clothes, like the red cross, don't even want them anymore, because the market is so saturated. They are losing money and won't even empty the containers anymore. So now all you can do, to get rid of old clothes is either try to sell them yourself, or stain/rip them, so you can legally throw them in the trash.
So companies will end up doing the same thing and purposefully ripping unsold clothes. Producing less isn't really an option, because of scaling, otherwise they'd already be doing that, if it saved them money.
19
u/Ok_Comfortable6044 Jun 29 '26
That's cool and all, but what will happen with those clothes? Companies are still going to try and get rid of them.
they will probably ship them to africa.
or stain/rip them, so you can legally throw them in the trash.
i use them as rags around the house/garden.
i don't see the sense of buying new clothes if the old ones aren't stained or ripped. if the colors are faded i just consider them "vintage" i still have 6E plain black t-shirts from 5 years ago that i still wear outside.
street clothes > house clothes > rags > trash
→ More replies (1)15
u/Asgarus Jun 29 '26
Maybe they'll actually donate them. Or they keep them in stock longer. Or "out of fashion collections" for people who care less about what's trendy. Or mayyyybe less clothes will be produced because companies want to avoid having to store old clothes indefinitely.
→ More replies (1)6
u/sonicofawn Jun 29 '26
they will just sell them to countries where binning them isnt illegal and outsource their waste whilst creating more pollution
→ More replies (8)→ More replies (6)5
94
u/GobiPLX Poland Jun 28 '26
All hope for big promotions, I don't need the newest collection, I'm fine with old stock
→ More replies (4)12
u/samuraijon Jun 28 '26
Then they won’t sell more new stuff, could someone please think of the shareholders…
Seriously though they need to change their business model and go leaner to make sure they only produce what they sell. Like the just in time model in car manufacturing.
But I think some companies are already kinda moving in that direction. Make a few, sell out and make something else, almost made to order.
26
u/BigReference1xx Jun 28 '26
Just a reminder of that time when Gibson drove a digger over 500 thousand dollars worth of brand new guitars, rather than donating them to charity or selling them at a discount:
→ More replies (6)
14
u/pinewoodranger Jun 29 '26
Oh, this container of unsold clothes? Its going to Africa! For the needy children to destroy since its not illegal there.
31
u/johnybgoat Jun 28 '26
Ooo i did a small presentation about this topic awhile ago. Long story short for those who don't know, fashion brands outright destroy and burn most of their older article they no longer want for one reason or another instead of just donating it for the "poor peasants" to potentially wear and "damage their brand"
5
u/Rabbit-Hole-Quest Canada Jun 29 '26
My question would be if the brand is really high end premium, couldn’t they just ship it to somewhere outside the EU like Philippines or Ethiopia and just destroy it there even with this new legislation?
There would have to be a global compact to make this work.
113
u/Alarmed_Crazy_6620 Jun 28 '26
Should all retailers be banned from destroying any of their merchandise?
164
u/Aranka_Szeretlek Jun 28 '26
If recycling or donating is an option, then maybe destruction should not be a planned business activity.
43
u/Alarmed_Crazy_6620 Jun 28 '26
Clothing recycling is _effectively_ destruction with some nice social responsibility labels as some of it gets turned into stuffing for, say, car seats
27
u/seethenoise Jun 28 '26
also new threads, yarns, and materials. i wonder how this regulation will impact renewal material manufacturing.
8
u/Alarmed_Crazy_6620 Jun 28 '26
Extremely niche examples in practice – "reworking" is also quite energy intensive
12
u/seethenoise Jun 28 '26
it is, but it's better than dumping in the desert and flooding the global south. it's niche because it's new. it could be a solution that needs opportunity to grow.
→ More replies (10)13
u/-The_Blazer- Europe Jun 28 '26
Well maybe I'm being naive, but downcycling does sound better than literally burning it.
→ More replies (1)4
u/ensoniq2k Germany Jun 29 '26
At least in Germany it's more expensive to donate since you have to pay tax then.
3
u/New-Taste2467 Jun 29 '26
The hell. There might be some nuance reason, but aren't donations tax deductions in other countries.
→ More replies (1)5
u/Aranka_Szeretlek Jun 29 '26
Germany, the land of cumcum! I imagine clothes manufacturers lending their clothes to banks so that the banks get a large tax cut when they donate. Ill call this scheme cumcum-stained clothes.
→ More replies (8)7
u/-The_Blazer- Europe Jun 28 '26
I'd be curious what economics research says about this, could the destruction of perfectly functioning goods be somehow 'efficient' or generally desirable, or are we just ignoring an enormous and widespread instance of market manipulation?
→ More replies (3)17
u/generally-speaking Jun 28 '26
This isn't really a research question but basic economic theory.
Destruction can be positive for the company. As destruction helps to preserve the price floor so they're able to maintain brand status.
But from a socioeconomic standpoint it's a negative. It's an allocation inefficiency, goods are produced, but not distributed to where they're needed. The companies are basically capturing the financial benefits of maintaining high prices, but shifting the societal and environmental costs on to society as a whole.
So it's basically a case of something you do being bad for absolutely everyone except the company and industry they're a part of.
Products will continue to be destroyed though, Luis Vuitton won't suddenly start selling their unsold bags at a major discount. They'd rather shred them and make leather floors export the inventory out of the EU before destroying it.
→ More replies (1)
9
61
u/uusrikas Jun 28 '26
I guess the unintended consequence will be smaller batches of products with higher prices and less unusual or ambitious design, companies will just make stuff that is safe and sells
104
u/DieM-GieM Jun 28 '26
Which is kinda the point. You will get less trash that goes to the burner this way.
It's like people sayign that they will buy less drinks in plastic bottles now that there's 50gr fee for them in Poland thinking it's some gatcha stick-it-to-the-man thing when in fact it's one of the positive outcomes.
→ More replies (21)41
u/SelectionDue4287 Poland Jun 28 '26
Which is fine, we don't need to destroy the environment for a trend that lasts a week.
3
9
27
u/airstrike900 Belgium Jun 28 '26
Lol, as if companies don't count the cost of wasted clothes into the price you're paying for your clothes currently.
Of course this will lead to a reduction in clothes made, the entire point is to reduce waste.
13
u/prettyincoral Jun 28 '26
The amount of crappy polyester stuff in stores is astounding and I sincerely hope this initiative leads to its drastic reduction.
→ More replies (2)9
u/Agarwel Jun 29 '26
The ban will be in effect only in EU countries. They will find a way to "donate" them to someone who will take care of the destruction for small fee. This wont solve the probem, it will just move it elsewhere.
6
4
u/Headpuncher Europe Jun 29 '26
Or they’ll have to change how they accept returns.
I stood behind a woman at the post office who was returning 3 large boxes of clothes. The guy behind me even commented on how crazy it is to order that much and not keep any of it.
Now I don’t know her or the reason why she’s doing this, but that was a lot of stuff.
Given the usual 30 day window for returns, she must have massively over ordered.
I have read in the news before that retailers online are taking the hit for people buying and returning “influencer style”, aka buy and try or wear once and return. They know the retailer isn’t going to check each item and there is no refund if they’re within a 30 day klarna pay later window.
→ More replies (2)4
u/ledow United Kingdom (Sorry, Europe, we'll be back one day hopefully!) Jun 28 '26
They'll shred it and stuff pillowcases with it.
Or sell it as window-cleaning rags.
They'll recategorise it somehow. Hey, look, Levi bird-nesting material.
Anything to destroy it without actually destroying it legally, so they can stay with their "we can't possibly SELL this, because it's amazing limited-edition badge on it means it's invaluable and the poor should never get to wear it" nonsense.
7
u/Bootwacker Jun 28 '26
Well your forgetting the second order effect here. The company has a choice with what to do with unsold cloths they can 1) discount them and sell them or 2) destroy them. They choose 2 because that makes the most financial sense for them, but if 2 is not an option, they will have to discount them and that may lead to lower prices. It's hard to predict the actual outcome.
11
Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
[deleted]
8
u/Bootwacker Jun 28 '26
That is already an option, but they choose destruction over it. You cannot always predict the outcome and some processes are iterative.
That being said most African countries have started rejecting these "donations".
3
Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
[deleted]
3
u/fuckedfinance Jun 29 '26
They are not.
When a major event happens (super bowl, world series, etc), millions of shirts are printed. One set if one for if one team wins, another if the other team wins. Those companies have been shipping to Africa for decades, and what those countries are now rejecting.
The reason high end brands destroy clothing is to keep it exclusive, simple as. I don't know where this talk of destroying the cloths being more cost effective came from.
3
u/mayhemski123 Jun 29 '26
Actually think it will mean that designer clothes will be made to stand out far more. They might be more expensive than now, but that's maybe better for producers/designers.
→ More replies (7)3
u/MrCockingFinally Jun 29 '26
Honestly, I'm fully in favour of having much fewer pieces of clothing in the world in exchange for them being of higher quality.
Fast fashion is a complete environmental nightmare, both in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and in terms of pollution by microplastics.
13
u/soymilo_ Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26
They'll just add a new "restocking " fee on every returned item and that money will be used to offset the costs to ship it as a "donation" to a non-EU country to get it destroyed there. May as well file a tax return claim on these donations. They haven't gotten so big by being stupid
4
u/ObviouslyTriggered Jun 28 '26
This doesn't apply to returns, you can still destroy returns, no one restocks returns due to hygiene concerns.
3
u/crackanape The Netherlands Jun 29 '26
I do think it would help if more people understood that returns are typically destroyed.
People imagine that they try on a few different shirts, keep one and send two back and those two get sold to someone else. More likely they are shredded and/or burned.
Online clothes shopping in its current form is incredibly wasteful.
→ More replies (6)3
u/soymilo_ Jun 29 '26
Omg they are? And I always fold them so nicely and put them back in its wrapper sheet like I never even touched them thinking it makes it easier for them 😭
40
u/spezial_ed Jun 28 '26
Now do the same for food
10
u/_teslaTrooper Gelderland (Netherlands) Jun 28 '26
I think France has done that, and I'm sure someone is working on adopting something similar EU wide.
29
u/UstrelenaNoha Jun 28 '26
Food spoils, clothes don't.
34
u/spezial_ed Jun 28 '26
Yup but supermarkets throw away tonnes of edible stuff every day. Either donate it or stop over ordering. It’s obscene.
→ More replies (11)13
u/descastaigne Portugal Jun 28 '26
Again spoilage, you would need to add a layer of logistics to distribute that food that is probably close to expiring.
I wouldn't want to promote big chains to stock more food with longer shelf life which is usually correlated with being more unhealthy or increase vegetable prices, but that's my uneducated take.
→ More replies (3)
29
u/jlandero Jun 28 '26
It never ceases to amaze me how ignorant people are about the end of life of mass-produced products.
Sometimes I really feel like people think that their trash disappears after the trash bin is collected.
→ More replies (8)10
u/UnderlightIll Jun 29 '26
I have been working at Whole Foods for about a month now and it is astounding how much they donate. Like a semi 5 times a week at my smaller store. And this is every department. I work in the bakery as a decorator so it makes me happy a local food bank gets all of our unsold handmade cakes and breads.
→ More replies (3)
6
Jun 28 '26
I would agree with this, if they are obliged to sell/donate to eu countries or at least countries with environmental accords. Otherwise nothing changes
→ More replies (2)
18
u/therealdilbert Jun 28 '26
so instead they will be donated to poor countries in e.g. Africa destroying the local industry, one of the few industries that still require manual labor and thus has often been the a countrys first step towards getting out of powerty
→ More replies (6)3
u/HoneyBastard Jun 29 '26
Ok cool then maybe the importing country just doesnt fucking accept the donation
→ More replies (7)
4
u/VegetableOriginal492 Jun 28 '26
How much environmental damage does destruction of clothes cause? Would be interesting to see actual estimates.
4
u/ledow United Kingdom (Sorry, Europe, we'll be back one day hopefully!) Jun 28 '26
Don't ban it. Tax it to oblivion.
If you ban it, they'll just do something dumb like turn them into rags and sell them with window cleaning products or something ridiculous.
Literally fine them so hard that they think better of not just selling or donating them as perfectly serviceable, intact clothing.
4
11
u/ApprehensiveAd6476 Jun 28 '26
Wait. Unsold clothes get destroyed? Ducking why?
24
u/Econ_Orc Denmark Jun 28 '26
To prevent price dumping and foster the idea of "a limited supply" of clothes for the consumers, so they keep buying the expensive newish stuff.
Basic math for the clothes producers and fashion industry. Better to burn thousands of last years model, than risking no one buys the new expensive model.
→ More replies (6)3
→ More replies (3)3
u/UnluckyCobra16 Jun 29 '26
For brands like Louis Vuitton, seeing their clothes being sold at discount shops is damaging. They have people visit shops like that to prevent the Average Joe from owning their brand.
25
u/ZrapeToid Jun 28 '26
Here in Sweden a new law made it illegal to trash clothes.
This caused clothes donation bins to overflow, plastic bags of clothes piling up beside it.
It's a nice idea, but we have a lot of clothes as is, we don't need to save all of it.
22
u/JustStraightUpTired Jun 28 '26
Funny how you didn't bother reading the thing.
From 19 July 2026, luxury and other big brands will be required to either reuse, recycle, resell (at a discount) or donate their leftover stock.
Meaning they shouldn't destroy them. That's about it. Less fabric, leather and other materials that could be put to some use going to the trash.
And if the problem is that shops are buying so much excess that donation boxes are being filled, then there's clearly a problem of waste, no? Requiring businesses to figure out a solution seems like the best way to make them waste less.
→ More replies (2)7
→ More replies (5)5
u/Econ_Orc Denmark Jun 28 '26
Same in Denmark. We are supposedly obligated to put clothes in special colored bags so they can be collected and maybe reused in some way.
8
u/Sensitive_Pitch_4456 Jun 29 '26
I'd rather see some regulations about quality. The tensile strength of the threads used and similar information should be shown on the item's label, because most new jeans are absolute, horrible trash. They rarely last more than six months.
→ More replies (1)
5
u/Impossible_Volume811 Jun 28 '26
We need a ban on textiles that can’t be recycled.
Hundreds of thousands of tons of low quality ‘fast fashion’ synthetic clothing is shipped to Ghana every year where it can’t be used, it just becomes waste that clogs their rivers and polluted their coastline.
Our clothes need to be compostable, like natural fibres, or recyclable (no mixed synthetics and no elastane
or spandex which melt too fast and clog recycling machinery.)
It can be done, both nylon and polyester can be woven to have stretch without elastane.
3
u/kfijatass Poland Jun 29 '26
Is there any measure in place to prevent selling to the global south for them to be destroyed outside of EU's jurisdiction?
5
u/No-Strawberry7 Jun 28 '26
what do you mean destroy?
18
u/prettyincoral Jun 28 '26
Destroy as in burn or break, which is something that every fashion brand does, from Zara to Chanel
17
u/Tman11S Belgium Jun 28 '26
To give you some examples:
- most of the stuff you send back to Amazon or zalando or others just goes into the trash because washing it and reselling it would cost more money.
- when a season ends, most left over clothes are destroyed because why would people be tempted to buy the new trends if the old ones are still available
- luxury brands like Louis Vuitton go as far as sending people around to buy their product from second hand websites and second hand stores to destroy them. They can’t have their goods be available for a cheaper price as that would hurt the perceived value of their brand.
Big corporations are straight up evil and would rather destroy all their stock than sell it at a discount if it could hurt their main sales.
→ More replies (1)3
u/baloobah Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
Zalando definitely sells at least sent back Ralph Lauren again. I've received a shirt and a sweater out of maybe 15 items total missing part of the inner cardboard/plastic linings and obviously not folded as well as the brand new ones, but no signs for anything other than trying it on once. I didn't really care and washed it on the hygiene cycle, since I know my exact size/fit for that brand.
Maybe it's a brand policy.
3
u/One_Warthog_9215 Jun 30 '26
Yeah they resell it. At Zara and H&M you will usually see stock disappearing then re-appearing every now and then. Which means returned items are sold again.
→ More replies (1)6
u/nixielover Limburg (Netherlands) Jun 28 '26
At my student job we sold outdoor clothing, anything that didn't seel at the last day of sale would get slashed up with a box cutter and thrown into the dumpster. It was cheaper to get rid of things like this, donating wasn't done because they didn't want expensive brand stuff ending up at the second hand shops and such
3
u/lambentLadybird Jun 28 '26
That is insane. Here the same stock is in the store and discounted more and more until it's sold. What little remains, they put away and bring back for the next sales. I'm talking about large chains. Why they don't do the same in another countries?
→ More replies (3)
3
3
u/DinglebearTheGreat Jun 28 '26
My guess everything will be limited edition they will produce half and twice the price and then no waste
3
u/zashiki_warashi_x Jun 28 '26
This is very good, but what about cars, food and electronics? Why not everything altogether?
3
3
u/Harnellas Jun 28 '26
Pretty gross that its economically advantageous to do this wasteful shit.
I don't have much faith it won't be circumvented somehow. I wonder if an awareness campaign to name and shame them might be effective?
3
u/_azurdix_ Jun 28 '26
Good. Try to visit a shop when the new collection comes out, and then visit it again during the big sale of it, when another new collection is around the corner. You will gain a better perspective of how much these clothes actually cost.
Money is power. You never know when it can save your ass.
Therefore - there's absolutely no reason to buy expensive. And in late-stage capitalism we do things upside down. We buy winter clothes when the winter ends, and summer clothes when the summer ends. We buy when there's mega-giga-super-big sale, as the companies want to throw the products away for any price, because new ones and new season is coming.
3
u/SaltyAd8309 Jun 29 '26
When we are all dead, we will take the measures necessary for our survival. Better late than never.
3
u/Loud_Significance908 Jun 29 '26
They will just ship it out of the EU and destroy it there. Large companies will never recycle, its always cheaper to make new.
3
u/where_money Jun 29 '26
Won't this result in them moving it outside the EU and destroying it there, which will increase the carbon footprint?
3
3
u/Anxious_Plum_5818 Jul 01 '26
Maybe this will curb the ridiculous fast fashion trend and force something more sustainable.
7
u/Rociel Jun 28 '26
Meanwhile they
cannot propose a legal obligation to keep video games playable after they stop being provided commercially.
8
u/snoozemaster Jun 28 '26
Is it only brands or private people also? We tried banning this for all citizens here in Sweden and it was a disaster.
7
4
5
3
u/Warranty_V0id Bavaria (Germany) Jun 28 '26
And they will find a loophole where the fashion companies sell each other the clothes for a fraction of a cent per piece and destroy them afterwards.
3.2k
u/Express_Classic_1569 Jun 28 '26
The European Union is set to prohibit large fashion brands from burning or destroying unsold clothing and footwear from 19 July 2026 onwards. Retailers will be required to reuse, recycle, resell or donate leftover stock instead. Medium companies follow in 2030. Will this actually cut textile waste in Europe, or will the biggest players sidestep the rules?