Instead of discarding stock, companies are encouraged to manage their stock more effectively, handle returns, and explore alternatives such as resale, remanufacturing, donations, or reuse.
The ban on destruction of unsold apparel, clothing accessories and footwear and the derogations will apply to large companies from 19 July 2026. Medium-sized companies are expected to follow in 2030. The rules on disclosure under the ESPR already apply to large companies and will also apply to medium-sized companies in 2030.
just put the unsold clothing in:
- thriftstores
- outlet stores
- stores that buy a lot of unwanted products for almost nothing and then sell it for very cheap
This is a great step, but the most premium of these clothes get burned to keep the value of the rest high. These companies will just shred them to fibers for insulation (which is recycling, not destruction). Just banning something won’t change their profit-focused mindset.
shred them to fibers for insulation (which is recycling, not destruction).
The regulation seems quite vague at this point but the argument that shredding jeans is not destroying them does not seem very convincing to me, even if the material is then recycled.
I guess we’ll have to wait for the definition of more specific rules to see what destruction is permissible.
Shredding is better than burning.
Clothing donations to poor countries destroys their own industry, why pay a local clothing manufacturer if Europe will send clothing for free?
Clothing donations can be great, but it is easy to use that as a mask for dumping unwanted clothing in other countries.
Sending it to “poor countries” (outside the EU) is more expensive than sending it to a local charity or just putting it on sale.
They don’t want it being put on sale because it destroys the brand image. Similarly, they don’t want it to be given away locally because it’ll just end up on sale.
This is one of the big issues with high end expensive fashion. They have to destroy unsold stock to maintain artificial scarcity.
Why don’t they just… produce fewer units…? Have an actual scarcity (and no waste) instead of artificial…? What am I missing here
