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.
The ban on destruction of unsold apparel, clothing accessories and footwear and the derogations will apply to large companies from 19 July 2026. Medium-sized companies are expected to follow in 2030. The rules on disclosure under the ESPR already apply to large companies and will also apply to medium-sized companies in 2030.
Currently, a lot of the discarding is done by individual shops/resellers. I know of a few instances where basically all customer returns and unsold merchandise was slashed at the orders of the manufacturer to make them unusable, and then thrown in the bin.
If that is made illegal and everything would have to be returned, stored, processed and then sent somewhere else anyway, the chance that it’s going to end up with destruction greatly diminishes - opening that outlet section/shop or selling them to a local outlet company suddenly makes a lot more finacial sense.