12/06/2023
We love when regulators and government step up to the plate. Recent regulations in the EU are coming together in an effort to mitigate fast fashion’s effect on the planet, including an explicit ban on the destruction of unsold and returned textile goods, prevention and minimization of microplastic and microfiber pollution in the environment, ensuring fair and ethical trade, and ending greenwashing.
Rapporteur Delara Burkhardt (S&D, DE) said: "Consumers alone cannot reform the global textile sector through their purchasing habits. If we allow the market to self-regulate, we leave the doors open for a fast fashion model that exploits people and the planet’s resources. The EU must legally oblige manufacturers and large fashion companies to operate more sustainably. People and the planet are more important than the textile industry’s profits. The disasters that have occurred in the past, such as the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory in Bangladesh, growing landfills in Ghana and Nepal, polluted water, and microplastics in our oceans, show what happens when this principle is not pursued. We have waited long enough - it is time to make a change!"
Source: europarl.europa.eu
