In a bid to curb waste and pollution in the clothing industry, EU member states agreed on Monday to ban the destruction of unsold clothes.
Almost six million tons of unwanted clothing are discarded every year in the EU, an amount that corresponds to around 11 kg for every European citizen, Commission data shows.
Only a quarter of these clothes are recycled and the rest is burned or ends up in landfills. The destruction of unused clothes has emerged as a major environmental problem, given that the textile industry currently accounts for one fifth of EU carbon emissions.
Waste is rife: major clothing brands often destroy unused stock to prevent it from ending up on the black market and damaging their image. Burberry, for example, revealed that in 2018 it burned £28.6 million worth of unsold goods, a practice that was later stopped due to the outcry.
Another factor is the difficulty of stores to manage products returned by consumers, as a result of which they prefer to throw them in the trash. The so-called Ecodesign regulation will however have to be agreed with the European Parliament before it is officially adopted.
the original proposal submitted by the European Commission in March 2022 provided that the decision to ban or not would be taken after an assessment by the Commission itself, which could take up to three years. EU governments deemed the matter urgent and accelerated the ban.
Small businesses with fewer than 50 employees are exempt from the measure, while medium-sized businesses with fewer than 250 employees will enjoy a four-year transition period.
The regulation also establishes the new “digital product passport” that gives information on the sustainability of products.
There are also thoughts about banning non-disposable electronic devices, but no decision has been made. A ban on the destruction of unsold goods is already in place in some member countries such as France.
