According to the EU directive — the Ecodesign Regulation (ESPR) — from July 19, 2026, large companies will no longer be allowed to destroy unsold or returned clothing and footwear. Instead, the products must be reused, donated to charity, or recycled. The goal is to keep goods in circulation longer and prevent them from ending up in the trash prematurely, Tagesschau reports.

Every year, millions of such items end up in landfills across the EU. In Germany alone, around 17 million returned clothing items were disposed of in 2021. According to the European Environment Agency (EEA), up to 600,000 tons of unworn textiles end up in European landfills each year, DW reports. This leads to a waste of resources and causes enormous damage to the environment and the climate.

The rules coming into force are part of a broader strategy aimed at making many products in the EU more durable, repairable, and reusable, thereby reducing CO₂ emissions throughout their entire life cycle. The ESPR has been in effect since the summer of 2024, and now the ban on destroying textiles is coming into force for large companies. Medium-sized enterprises are granted longer transition periods until 2030.

However, this ban is not entirely absolute. The regulation provides for exceptions, for example, if products cannot be reused for safety reasons or if reuse is technically impracticable.