196
EU bans the destruction of unsold apparel, clothing, accessories and footwear
(environment.ec.europa.eu)
this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2026
196 points (99.5% liked)
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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
Because often it's a one time order and it's hard to predict how well it will sell. The clothing is produced before the season to be sold during that season. Fast fashion companies only need like two weeks between ordering and it available in store, but this is not how the premium ('traditional') industry works. They sell of as much as they can at maximum price and destroy what's leftover at the end of the season. Not saying this makes sense, but it does get you the most profit in the long term.
But then they might miss out on profit!
It's a batshit moon monkey logic chain. Run x line and sell as many as you can ...and then never sell them again. Destroy the excess stock and write it off
Fashion logic works like that. The people paying the huge dollars for the latest fashions don’t want last year’s stuff. They pay big money to not look like the poors!
It's a sickness.
They’re not really doing anything different from birds or other animals that use expensive signals of fitness.
Really? Show me a bird that's manufactured scarcity to enforce social standing
I was talking about the fashion consumers, not the brands.