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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?
by throwaway198846 7mo ago
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?
- JasonADrury 7mo ago>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 7mo agoThat doesn't really make sense, losing your whole investment is already a strong incentive to not produce something you can't sell.
- randomNumber7 7mo agoYou can produce so little people take anything you give them - like it was in the Soviet union.
- grayhatter 7mo agoAssume the legislation is trying to reduce a real problem. Why does that problem exist if that incentive is actually really strong in practice? I assume it's not actually a really strong incentive in context.
- ch4s3 7mo ago> Assume the legislation is trying to reduce a real problem Why assume that? Could you not imagine that legislation is often meant to signal values to voters as much or more than it is intended to solve real problems.
- grayhatter 7mo ago> Why assume that? Could you not imagine that legislation is often meant to signal values to voters as much or more than it is intended to solve real problems. You mean something like, to signal to voters they're trying to solve a problem voters want changed? Or a problem voters say they have? I didn't mean to imply it would fix the problem, or that the problem would be fixed. Just that there's desire for [thing targeted], is something enough people would want to change. I also said "assume that" for the sake of the argument/discussion given you started by saying you didn't understand. I say it's trivial to understand if assume there are other incentives where destroying the product is desirable. Thus making the incentive you mentioned, not very strong, (in context).
- ch4s3 7mo agoEU regulations aren’t set by people who are directly elected though, so the incentives are really weird. It seems like largely a non-problem, the likes of which gets obsessed over by the types of also ran politicians who end up as members of the European Parliament or filtering into the Brussels bureaucracy. Call me when they stop buying Russian gas.
- wahnfrieden 7mo agoClothing has a huge profit margin (when manufactured overseas) especially at the higher end (for brands which do not invest in local production, which is most, because it is also hard to beat Chinese quality). It's better for these brands to over-produce on some items and lose the low-cost inventory, than to under-produce and not meet market demand, to not offer a range of sizes and varieties to meet individual taste, and not achieve wide distribution that's necessary to grow market demand. That's why regulation is needed here.
- ch4s3 7mo agoI get he economics, but I don’t think it follows that it’s a problem governments need to involve themselves in.
- ragall 7mo agoYou might not think that, but EU citizens think otherwise.
- wahnfrieden 7mo agoWhat’s your big idea
- JasonADrury 7mo agoA factory might have a minimum order quantity of 10000 units for a product. The products cost $1 landed. You know you can sell 4000 of those products for a total of $15k. This might become a bad deal if dealing with the 6000 extra units costs you money.
- em-bee 7mo agomaybe this will force factories to change their process. with manufacturing getting cheaper, smaller batches become affordable. at the extreme we can now print books on demand, and improved 3D printing allows one-off items in many more areas. that's the trend we need to push. to get away from wasteful mass production.
- wahnfrieden 7mo agoPush how? Through regulation? Unclear how else you’d achieve this if it is still worse economically. Buyers don’t want to pay more either.
- em-bee 7mo agothrough demand at first. clothes designers are hopefully going to demand smaller batches to avoid getting punished for overproducing. but if that doesn't work, then yes, maybe regulation is necessary. tricky though because manufacturing is often outside of the EU. overproduction needs to be made more uneconomical than smaller batches. if that is really the issue. i really doubt that large batches of production are actually the problem here.
- wahnfrieden 7mo agoHow much longer do you wait to see if demand solves it? It hasn't. The problem has gotten worse
- em-bee 7mo agowell the laws have just been changed. so i'd say we should observe what effect they will have.
- osigurdson 7mo agoI would think the incentives to produce things no one wants would already be pretty low.
- JasonADrury 7mo agoSupplier MOQs can create significant incentives to overproduce. For example, you get 9000 things someone wants and 1000 that no-one wants. This can be profitable for the customer, if they can't just easily get rid of those 1000 they can't sell, it's presumably less profitable.
- osigurdson 7mo agoPresumably the split between things people want and do not want is not known a priori. It seems the EU is trying to legislate into an existence a solution to an unsolvable equation.
- JasonADrury 7mo agoNot really, the EU is just introducing additional weighing in favor of smaller order quantities.
- xp84 7mo agoThey are -- so I hope Europeans will remember this when they have more trouble finding the size and color they need. If you can't throw anything away you do have to underproduce to avoid being stuck with crap that no one wants, is illegal to throw away, and can't even be recycled (because that would be 'destroying' the clothes, wouldn't it?) So you have to underproduce always, and maybe not even make things that aren't a safe bet to sell out.
- JasonADrury 7mo agoYou can just donate them. If no one will take them, you are in fact allowed to destroy the products when it's "the option with the least negative environmental impacts".
- StopDisinfo910 7mo agoOverproducing 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.
- vscode-rest 7mo ago[dead]
- kwanbix 7mo agoMaybe 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.
- smt88 7mo agoPoor 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/ https://atmos.earth/art-and-culture/the-messy-truth/
- kube-system 7mo agoJust because a country has clothing in it doesn’t mean all of the people in that country have clothing. There are people in rich countries that need clothes. Clothing wears out, it’s a perpetual need and perpetually disposed.
- philipallstar 7mo agoThe world makes clothes incredibly cheaply. Any country can solve this problem if it wants to. It doesn't need silly fashion clothes shipped from America to do so.
- kube-system 7mo agoAbsolutely poverty is just a distribution problem. But ultimately somebody has to step up to do the distribution to solve it. It doesn’t really matter who. But given that the problem still exists, there’s not enough people stepping up in the right places.
- philipallstar 7mo agoThe answer is simple: despite so much money given and forgiven, and people going over all the time to build toilets and basic human-scale improvements, most countries with real deprivation have a massive corruption problem, mainly culturally induced, that stops real improvement. Saying "it's not people stepping up" elides the cultural issue.
- mbeavitt 7mo agoif 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 7mo agoWell 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.
- ncruces 7mo agoI bet there's some price at which someone will happily take that Luis Vuitton bag or Burberry coat.
- throwuxiytayq 7mo agoThey should pay people to wear them.
- randomNumber7 7mo agoEuropean politicians will wear the clothes nobody wants so they can be decommissioned lawfully.
- lores 7mo agoThis 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.
- xp84 7mo agoWhere even are all the people wandering around naked for lack of clothes? There's so much donated clothing already out there. And the homeless here mainly 'need clothes' because they have no way to wash their clothes. It'd be less wasteful to get them access to laundry facilities. And the developing world always gets the "PATRIOTS - Super Bowl LX Champions" gear and a ton of other cast-offs - I doubt they need more. To me this whole regulation sounds like a bunch of virtue-signaling politicians wanted to pat themselves on the back.
- lores 7mo agoThen fewer clothes will get manufactured, which is exactly the goal.
- oblio 7mo agoYou sound American, so why do you even care? Have fun in the land of the free.
- xp84 7mo agoSame reason you read and comment about America, I guess
- Zigurd 7mo agoIf I had that kind of hustle, I'd be finding out who exports the losing teams T-shirts and reimport them. I'm sure some Pats fans would pay $50 a shirt to live in an alternative reality.
- riffraff 7mo ago> 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 7mo agoWhich in many cases is less environmentally efficient than the alternative
- whateverboat 7mo agoDonations would already be a great thing. This law makes it feasible in boardrooms to justify donations. Donations to shelters, developing countries and otherwise.
- smt88 7mo agoWhat developing country do you think has a clothing shortage?
- saubeidl 7mo agoWhat about the poor in their own countries that might not be able to afford clothes?
- cindyllm 7mo ago[dead]
- ozgrakkurt 7mo agoBut then the prices might drop and the shareholders might lose value. Rather have all people spend all of their money to the cent to buy clothes, to pay rent and to buy water tbh
- saubeidl 7mo agoIf the shareholders are rich because the poor are not clothed then fuck the shareholders and the system that made them rich.
- WarmWash 7mo agoThe shareholders losing value means that either all clothes drop to shein quality or they just stop making clothes.
- anigbrowl 7mo agoOK. We were told creative destruction is good, if some companies exit the market and are replaced by others that offer better value then resources are being allocated more efficiently, no?
- smt88 7mo agoI 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.
- pfp 7mo agoI 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 7mo agoI'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?
- pfp 7mo agoAh yes, the classic HN hair splitting meta-argument. No.
- kube-system 7mo agoWhat they’re getting at is not hairsplitting. Your argument presumes that the purpose of clothing is utilitarian in nature. That it exists merely to cover our bodies efficiently. Clothing also has an anthropological function as fashion. That might not be something that you are personally interested in, but it is factually something that provides value to society. You are certainly entitled to the opinion that fast fashion is not a good thing. But it’s just an opinion.
- VorpalWay 7mo agoFashion changing all the time (on the order of seasons rather than years) contributes to a lot of waste. Your claim that it "factually something that provides value to society“ is unsubstantiated. Just as unsubstantiated as "You are certainly entitled to the opinion that fast fashion is not a good thing". All fast fashion does is waste money for consumers who buy into the craze, compared to buying quality that lasts. I have used the same two pair of jeans for over a decade at this point for example, and they are in close to mint condition (apart from the colour on the knees). Some T-shirts that I own have survived as long, many have not (it is very hard to tell the quality of the fibers up front unfortunately). In all cases, I use clothes until they are so worn through that they are past my repair skills. So yes, some people are "invested" in fashion, but I'm saying that is akin to being "invested" in gambling or shopping for the sake of shopping. Addictions come in many forms.
- everforward 7mo agoI 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.
- steanne 7mo agoi would think chanel quilts would sell very well
- nine_k 7mo agoBut what do you do with unsold Chanel quilts?
- otterley 7mo agoTurn them into insulation! This is what happens with old denim jeans: https://www.henry.com/residential/products/insulation/denim-insulation/ultratouch-r13/#product-details-section https://www.henry.com/residential/products/insulation/denim-...
- onionisafruit 7mo agoChanel; the ultimate luxury insulation.
- anigbrowl 7mo agoCut the price, this is basic microeconomics.
- 7mo ago
- Seattle3503 7mo agoIt seems like countries will do anything but tax carbon.
- olalonde 7mo agoFor 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".
- Y-bar 7mo agoCarbon 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.
- kleiba 7mo agohttps://taxfoundation.org/data/all/eu/carbon-taxes-europe-2024/ https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/eu/carbon-taxes-europe-20...
- RamblingCTO 7mo agoOutlets could be a key here.
- abecode 7mo agoMaybe they could bury the clothes and call it carbon sequestration. I assume that clothes are made of mostly hydrocarbons.
- nine_k 7mo agoWon'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.
- is_true 7mo agoyep, they do https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2021/11/8/chiles-desert-dumping-ground-for-fast-fashion-leftovers https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2021/11/8/chiles-desert-du...
- slaymaker1907 7mo agoThis 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.
- kylehotchkiss 7mo agoah yes the Container Ship strategy
- rsynnott 7mo agoThis is also a restricted activity: https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/waste-and-recycling/waste-shipments/plastic-waste-shipments_en 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.