Every year, millions of tons of new, unsold clothing and accessories are simply shredded and often burned or end up as garbage in places like the Atacama Desert in Chile, where they threaten the ecosystem. The same applies to clothing that customers send back to fashion brands. According to the Federal Ministry for the Environment, an average person in Germany buys an average of 60 items of clothing a year. Sales have more than doubled since the turn of the millennium, particularly thanks to e-commerce, which is why the textile industry is responsible for 10% of global CO2 emissions. The extreme increase in ultra-fast fashion by brands like Shein from China, which have long since overtaken Inditex (umbrella brand to which Zara and Bershka belong, among others) and H&M, is causing an ever greater environmental problem, as the clothing and accessories are very often of very poor synthetic quality and end up in the trash very quickly because they are not recyclable and therefore cannot be returned to the textile cycle. The damage to the environment and people is therefore extremely high. Overproduction is a calculated business model of these fast fashion corporations.

The Ecodesign Regulation is intended to prohibit the destruction of new goods in the EU after two years. Re- and upcycling are exempt. For small companies, a transition period of six years applies. The aim is to prevent overproduction, because according to expert estimates, one third of the clothing produced worldwide each year is never sold.

The regulation does not specify exactly what the aim of curbing overproduction is. It is therefore unclear whether overproduction can be stopped. There are no clear rules. The only hope is that this regulation will lead to a rethinking of fashion brands in Europe and around the world. The business model should not be maximum profit through fast fashion, but rather slow fashion through a circular economy that takes people and the environment into consideration.