EU Ecodesign Regulation Will Ban Destroying Unsold Clothes from 19th July, but Fast Fashion Overproduction Remains Unchecked

Credits: earth.org

Every year, with the arrival of sales, the shop windows fill with the usual signs reading "-50%", "-70%", or "last pieces, clear everything". Crowds of people rush to grab, rummage through the clothes… but not everything is sold, of course, and few ask themselves: what happens to everything that is not sold? Probably very few know, so I am sharing it with you. The answer is simple: everything is destroyed. These are not defective or damaged clothes, but perfect and new items that were made with water, energy, raw materials, and human labor, all important resources for the planet, and they are simply thrown away. It is an enormous and invisible waste because no one thinks about it, but not knowing or ignoring it does not make it disappear, and this waste weighs on the planet almost as much as the entire carbon footprint of Sweden.

I found out, however, that from July 19, 2026, fortunately something changes. With the European regulation on sustainable product ecodesign (ESPR), large companies will no longer be able to destroy unsold clothes, shoes, or accessories at their own discretion. They will have to publicly declare the volumes disposed of and justify every destruction, reserved only for damaged products or for safety reasons. For medium-sized companies, the deadline unfortunately comes later, in 2030, but the principle on which the law was enacted is clear: unsold inventory becomes a responsibility.

It is an important and significant step that we are moving in the right direction, but it is also true that it remains only a small patch on a flawed system that produces too much. Fast fashion is not a mistake: it is designed to saturate the market, create urgency to buy, and encourage continuous returns. The destruction of unsold goods is only the final result of a rotten model that measures success in quantity produced and sold.

The regulation pushes companies to find alternatives: resale, donation, refurbishment, more efficient stock management. All good, and of course even commendable in the case of items donated to charity, but the heart of the problem remains the infinite expansion of volumes, and this therefore remains a partial solution because it is true that transparency and the ban on destruction make the waste visible, but do not stop overproduction and the exaggerated consumerist model.

The real change will come only with more radical legislation: producing less, better, and with durability and quality, stopping the treatment of the planet’s resources as unlimited supplies to consume and throw away. The ESPR regulation is good as a first important political signal: perhaps the era of legalized waste is really ending. But if we really want to stop the structural excess of fashion, the next step is clear: stop producing more than is needed.

References: https://environment.ec.europa.eu/news/new-eu-rules-stop-destruction-unsold-clothes-and-shoes-2026-02-09_en