RREUSE, together with ECOS and the EEB, welcomes the European Commission’s proposal to ban the destruction of unsold apparel and footwear — a long-awaited move to address overproduction and resource waste in the textile sector.
However, the current draft leaves room for interpretation that could undermine the ban’s intended impact. We call for a tighter, clearer framework that ensures derogations are truly exceptional and not a backdoor for fast fashion operators’ wasteful practices.
In our joint position paper, we outline key recommendations to ensure the ban fulfils its promise to reduce the negative environmental impact of the textile sector.
These include removing donation refusal as a valid reason for destruction, narrowing health and safety derogations to cases where contamination is genuinely irreversible, and eliminating vague cost-based justifications that favour fast fashion. Destruction should only be permitted once all technically feasible options for reuse, repair or remanufacturing have been exhausted. In cases where products cannot be sold due to expired licensing agreements, companies should be required to explore alternatives, such as delabeling, rather than defaulting to destruction.
Together, these measures would help shift the sector away from wasteful practices and towards a more responsible, circular model.
