The European Commission today (Feb 9) adopted new measures under the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) to prevent the destruction of unsold apparel, clothing, accessories and footwear.
But but but that’s ANTI CAPITALIST!! What’s next? Preventing the throwing away of grapes to keep the costs high?
If that works as well as the “ban” on “disposable” vapes here in the UK I’m not holding my breath …
Recycle, reuse, renew
The cheap china clothes are made of synthetic fiber made from oil. Recycling this will work as well as recycling plastic.
Here’s a nice oversight of the Dutch overheid .
Refuse should be the first
I watched a mini documentary once on the people who do the work destroying unsold clothing, and recycling some of the fibers. It’s pretty insane.
This should have a severe impact on “fast fashion”. The companies will not know what to do with all the unsold stuff.
But I bet there’ll be a loophole…Export to another company in a 3rd world country, which happens to be a mailbox on an illegal rubbish dump.
It would likely be that the clothes have to be sold as is. What will then happen is that the clothes get sold for essentially scrap to a country that will shred the clothes. Either that, or these clothes will be sold next to shirts celebrating the 2026 New England Patriots for winning the Super Bowl.
