[throwaway198846]

Can they ship it outside the EU and then destroy it? What happens if truly nobody wants those clothes? Why not just put a carbon tax per weight?

[everforward]

I don’t think that solves the issue they want to fix. The issue is brands that are stylish destroying clothing that’s now out of style (preserving brand value).

The price point is already high enough that taxing raw materials doesn’t really push the needle on price, they’ll just pass the costs on.

Utilitarian brands already don’t want to destroy clothing because their customers are price sensitive.

This forces the brands to do something with excess clothing. I suspect they’ll do whatever is the closest to destroying the clothing, like recycling them into rags or shredding them for dog bed filler or something. Maybe even just recycling them back to raw fibers.

[nine_k]

How recycling by shredding is not destroying?

If the regulation specifically prohibits burning, it makes sense, as a measure to limit unproductive CO₂ emissions.

[steanne]

i would think chanel quilts would sell very well

[whateverboat]

Donations would already be a great thing. This law makes it feasible in boardrooms to justify donations. Donations to shelters, developing countries and otherwise.

[Galanwe]

My wife worked for a cloth upcycling association (finding sustainable future for discarded clothes).

Reality is, there is just 10x more thrown out clothes in the west that any third world country on earth could need, same for shelters.

Associations distributing clothes to developing countries / shelters are filtering tightly what they accept.

In short, the vast majority of thrown out clothes in the west are just crapwear that not even the third world want. There are entire pipelines of filtering and sorting to only keep and distribute the good quality clothes.

[jjkaczor]

That has already been happening for decades - and it isn't the "net benefit" most think it is - here is just one example - but there are dozens of similar articles that can be found:

https://www.udet.org/post/the-hidden-cost-of-generosity-how-...

[kube-system]

Aren’t there already advantages to donating? I.e. Tax advantages, and a lack of disposal cost?

I think the reason that brands don’t want to donate is because they don’t want their brands to be associated with poor people.

[KellyCriterion]

Ive read some years ago that companies do not donate and destroy instead because of whatever wierd tax-regulation

[smt88]

What developing country do you think has a clothing shortage?

[seydor]

donations are just an excuse to dump them on poor countries

[mbeavitt]

if you read the article...

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.

I guess remanufacturing/reuse might be the intended solution if it's absolutely not to be worn.

[throwaway198846]

Well one link deeper says "Restrict the export of textile waste" but I'm still unclear why they preferred these measure over a carbon tax.

Edit: "To prevent unintended negative consequences for circular business models that involve the sale of products after their preparation for reuse, it should be possible to destroy unsold consumer products that were made available on the market following operations carried out by waste treatment operators in accordance with Directive 2008/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council3. In accordance with that Directive, for waste to cease to be waste, a market or demand must exist for the recovered product. In the absence of such a market, it should therefore be possible to destroy the product." This is a rather interesting paragraph which seems to imply you can destroy clothes if truly nobody wants it.

[JasonADrury]

>What happens if truly nobody wants those clothes

In theory companies would eventually be forced to produce less items nobody wants, although this is just an additional incentive in that natural process.

[ch4s3]

That doesn't really make sense, losing your whole investment is already a strong incentive to not produce something you can't sell.

[StopDisinfo910]

Overproducing is often cheaper than losing sales because of the fixed costs of producing a batch and the externalities of destroying your inventory not being priced in. Some brands also find it more interesting to destroy stocks than reduce prices because it protects their brand values. Well, now, that's illegal.

[osigurdson]

I would think the incentives to produce things no one wants would already be pretty low.

[riffraff]

> What happens if truly nobody wants those clothes?

from TFA

> companies are encouraged to manage their stock more effectively, handle returns, and explore alternatives such as resale, remanufacturing, donations, or reuse.

Worst case would be recycling the fibers, presumably.

[cm2012]

Which in many cases is less environmentally efficient than the alternative

[randomNumber7]

European politicians will wear the clothes nobody wants so they can be decommissioned lawfully.

[lores]

This kind of reply is so cliché it's tiresome. "Someone makes small step to avoid waste and environmental damage" -> "if it's not perfect it's no good at all, let the free market sort it out at t=infinity".

Guess what, the free market doesn't give a shit as long as the executives make their millions.

[sschueller]

Why would you over produce something no one wants?

Also if really no one wanted it, why are companies destroying the items instead of giving them away?

[abecode]

Maybe they could bury the clothes and call it carbon sequestration. I assume that clothes are made of mostly hydrocarbons.

[nine_k]

Won't fungi and bacteria eat (cellulose-based) the clothes, releasing the same amount of CO₂, only a bit slower? Synthetic fabrics can likely be buried as a form of carbon sequestration though.

[Seattle3503]

It seems like countries will do anything but tax carbon.

[Y-bar]

Carbon is not the only concern here, it is also excessive water use, excessive land use, higher logistics pressure on ports and such which can be reduced if these are made to a higher quality and a reduced quantity.

[olalonde]

For the same reason tax codes are complex. If you have a simple law, there's no way for a politician to say to a group of people: "If you vote for me, I will get you a special favour".

[kleiba]

https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/eu/carbon-taxes-europe-20...

[smt88]

I suspect this end up like US "recycling" of plastic: pay another country to "reuse/recycle" the waste, and that country then dumps it in a landfill, dumps it in the ocean, or burns it.

[slaymaker1907]

This already happens a lot for used clothes with the thrift store->poor country->landfill pipeline. That third step will likely be a lot less rare with new clothes.

[kwanbix]

Maybe donate it to poor countries?

When I used to work for the biggest ecommerce in europe, we had various stages for clothes. The last stage was selling the clothes by kilo to companies.

[jjkaczor]

That has already been happening for decades - and it isn't the "net benefit" most think it is - here is just one example - but there are dozens of similar articles that can be found:

https://www.udet.org/post/the-hidden-cost-of-generosity-how-...

[subscribed]

I don't think these companies want the poor people to wear their brand.

They'll find another way to destroy them.

2018 article reports that Burberry destroyed £28 millions worth of clothes to keep their brand "exclusive": https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44885983

[smt88]

Poor countries don't need clothes. They have clothes. It's just more (mostly plastic pollution) that fills their landfills and rivers.

https://atmos.earth/art-and-culture/the-messy-truth/

[docflabby]

Most clothes are manufactured in countries with cheaper labor costs to cut costs - the reality is clothes are cheap to make in terms of raw materials- and dumping unwanted clothes will just destory the local economy

[rsynnott]

This is also a restricted activity: https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/waste-and-recycling/...

At least for polyester, etc. As the rule is worded today maybe you'd get away with it for cotton? But the rule can always be changed.

[is_true]

yep, they do https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2021/11/8/chiles-desert-du...

[pfp]

I wouldn't be surprised if they "sold" (at a nominal price) the extra stock to a company outside the union for "resale" (burning in India or dumping into the ocean)

What we really need is 10x more expensive, durable clothing that you buy every 10 years. And the cultural shift to go along with it. Not Mao suits for everyone but some common effing sense. But I guess that's bad for business and boring for consumers, so...

[pc86]

I'm not particularly big into fashion (I think my newest clothes are 4-5 years old), but why is the thing you want "common [expletive] sense" and someone choosing to spend their money a different way, by extension, nonsensical?

[philipallstar]

It's just boring for consumers. Business provides value to customers. Customers dictate what gets produced. And there are customers (e.g. me) who do keep things for a longer amount of time - there's a reason why generally men's clothing makes up around 20% of the total clothing shopping floor space in any given city.

[throwuxiytayq]

They should pay people to wear them.

[RamblingCTO]

Outlets could be a key here.

[kylehotchkiss]

ah yes the Container Ship strategy