Comment by anymouse123456
9 days ago
Indeed. The government represents a legal framework for us all to operate in together. Sure.
If I pay for something to be made, that something belongs to me. It becomes private property and (at least in the US) I'm free to destroy a thing I own.
If you want to talk about options for protecting the environment, that seems great. There are ways to destroy textiles without fouling rivers or the air.
The OP article raises the spectre of "CO2 emissions" and "pollution" but doesn't provide any meaningful data (units or scale) related to these concerns.
My claim is that there is no way this activity represents any reasonable scale of impact relative to those separate concerns and that we already have lots of regulation related to keeping our water and air clear.
We can discuss ideas about how to do even better on those fronts, but this does not seem like a great way to have a large impact, if the environment is the actual concern.
How about all the laborers who were able to feed their families making these products that were destroyed? What happens to them when the company decides next year to be more conservative and make less stuff?
I'm not advocating for waste, I'm just pointing out that legislation like this often (almost always) comes along with unintended consequences that wind up causing more harm than good.
> It becomes private property and (at least in the US) I'm free to destroy a thing I own.
Only within the confines of the law. If I buy a skyscraper I can’t blow it up without permits. I can’t burn trash in my yard in the middle of the city. I can’t tear down a landmark in a historical district, even if I own it.
Right, but these are unlawful activities and I haven’t seen any claims that these companies are engaging in unlawful behavior.
Instead, the legislators are making currently lawful behavior unlawful.
That’s what I find upsetting.
And everything I described was at one point legal.
> Instead, the legislators are making currently lawful behavior unlawful.
That's how progress happens. Welcome to the real world.
Yes, these laws have unintended consequences. I think at the continental scale the EU operates every law or decision has that.
But the current incentives in the fashion market also has unintended consequences: companies producing a lot of garments only to destroy them to protect perceived intellectual property value.
And here's the thing: this brand image value is relative. So by forcing all companies to comply no one has to take the negative brand image hit that would be required to unilaterally decide to do this.