Larger retailers will no longer be allowed to destroy unsold clothing in the EU in the future. This was decided on Tuesday evening. The European Commission may extend the new ban to other products in the future.
In principle, the ban should be applied two years after the entry into force of the regulation. Parliament and EU countries have yet to officially approve the agreement, although this is considered a formality. Large companies are particularly affected. In the future, they will have to announce every year how many unsold products they sort and why. According to previous studies, approximately four percent of returns should be destroyed. “This is expected to strongly discourage companies from adopting this practice,” the European Commission said.
Exceptions for smaller companies
There are exceptions for smaller companies; a transition period of six years is planned for medium-sized companies. The background to the new ban is a proposal from the European Commission from March 2022 on the so-called Ecodesign Regulation. This means that products last longer, are easier to reuse, repair and recycle and also use fewer resources such as energy and water.
It is not yet clear in detail what further requirements will be imposed on individual products. In short, the agreement states that the European Commission can issue legally binding requirements intended to make goods such as furniture, tires, detergents, paint or chemicals more environmentally friendly. Many raw materials such as iron, steel and aluminum will also be regulated accordingly in the future. There are exceptions for, for example, cars or military products.
Approval by EU MPs of the SPÖ
In the future, there will also be a repair index that will allow consumers to see how easily a product can be repaired when purchasing. The environmental organization Greenpeace sees the new decision as an important step against the waste of resources. However, the transition periods are long and there are gaps in the text that has not yet been published.
SPÖ-EU MPs Günther Sidl and Andreas Schieder spoke of an important step for the environment and consumer protection. Textile production has more than doubled in the past twenty years. “Europeans buy 26 kilos of textiles almost every year, but throw away about eleven kilos. “87 percent of this textile waste is incinerated or ends up in landfills,” says Sidl. Schieder, in turn, assumes that washing machines, televisions and windows will be easier to repair in the future.
Source: Krone
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