Short answer: Since 19 July 2026, large companies may not destroy unsold apparel, clothing accessories or footwear in the EU. Recycling and energy recovery count as destruction too, so shredding unsold stock into fibre is covered as well. Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/296 allows exceptions in only ten defined cases, such as safety risks, damage beyond repair or a donation nobody wanted, and you have to be able to document each case for five years. Medium-sized companies follow in July 2030, while micro and small companies are exempt. The ban comes from ESPR, the same regulation that introduces the Digital Product Passport, and both require you to know exactly which product you're dealing with.

Who is covered by the destruction ban?

The Commission estimates that 4 to 9% of textile products placed on the European market are destroyed before use, between 264,000 and 594,000 tonnes a year.

When may unsold clothes still be destroyed?

Article 2 of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/296 lists the exceptions exhaustively. You may only destroy products in these cases, and each comes with its own conditions:

1. The product is dangerous within the meaning of the General Product Safety Regulation.
2. The product breaches Union or national law, and destruction is required by law or is the appropriate and proportionate corrective action.
3. The product infringes intellectual property rights, established for example by a court decision, an ADR outcome, a notification by the right holder or a substantiated internal investigation.
4. A licence has expired or a contractual restriction from the right holder prevents further distribution.
5. IP-protected or inappropriate labels, logos or design features can't technically be removed, and that prevents preparing the product for reuse or remanufacturing.
6. The product is damaged, deteriorated or contaminated, or has hygiene issues, and repair or refurbishment is technically not feasible or not economically reasonable.
7. A design or manufacturing defect makes repair technically impossible.
8. Donation failed: the product was offered to at least three suitable social economy entities and refused, or offered publicly on your website for at least eight weeks without a taker. This applies only if none of the grounds above do.
9. A social economy entity that received the product as a donation can't find a taker for it.
10. A waste treatment operator prepared the product for reuse but found no recipient.

For several grounds, a simple statement isn't enough. The IP grounds require you to show the infringement and that destruction is proportionate, and the damage ground requires a cost comparison between repair and replacement. You can keep the evidence per item, or per batch if the same circumstances apply to all of it. It has to be kept for five years, and if an authority asks for it, you have 30 days to respond. You also have to tell the waste treatment operator which derogation applies.

What do companies have to report?

Large companies also have to disclose once a year how many unsold consumer products they discard, why, and how the waste was treated. This obligation started with the first full financial year beginning on or after 18 July 2024, so most companies report for the first time in 2026, on their 2025 financial year. A Commission implementing regulation sets a mandatory reporting format, which applies to financial years starting on or after 2 March 2027.

Why does the destruction ban come down to product data?

The ban is easy to understand, but proving that you followed it takes work. For every item or batch you discard you need to show which derogation applies, why it couldn't be sold, repaired or donated, and where it went. Batch-level evidence is allowed where the same circumstances apply, so you don't have to track every single item. Most fashion companies, though, only record stock by SKU and quantity and not why something went unsold, which makes even batch-level evidence hard.

Returns are the hardest part. A returned jacket might be resellable, repairable, damaged or contaminated, and the decision is often made in minutes at a returns centre. Without good product data on material, care, repair options and resale value, the cheapest option usually wins, and that option is now often illegal.

What does the destruction ban have to do with the textile DPP?

The textile DPP is not mandatory yet. The Commission's roadmap lists the ESPR delegated act for textiles for Q3 to Q4 2027, with the obligation following later (see our textile DPP article). Its exact fields aren't fixed yet, but the preparatory work points to much of the same data that helps you manage the destruction ban:

• Fibre composition and material data tell recyclers and resellers what they are handling.
• Repair and care information supports the "can it be repaired?" decision you have to document.
• A unique product identity lets you trace an item from return to resale, donation or recycling.

Be careful how you talk about it, too: since 27 September 2026, generic claims like "sustainable fashion" are banned unless you can demonstrate recognised excellent environmental performance, see the green claims rules. If you build this data now because of the ban, you can reuse it for the textile DPP later, even though the final fields, granularity and technical format will only be set by the delegated act. The same data also helps you earn money from resale and repair, as we show in circular economy revenue.

How to prepare for the destruction ban

1. Check whether you count as a large company under the EU accounting definitions.
2. Map where unsold goods and returns end up today, including via service providers.
3. Set up a documented decision process for each derogation, including the donation offer and eight-week listing.
4. Get written treatment statements from your waste operators.
5. Prepare the annual disclosure and plan for the mandatory format from 2027.
6. Use the same project to structure material, care and repair data per product in your PIM.

"Whether the destruction ban is respected gets decided in the returns centre, often in a few minutes per item. If people there can't see what a jacket is made of and whether it can be repaired, they go for the cheapest option."

Christian Hieronimi, CEO, dpp.cloud

How dpp.cloud fits

dpp.cloud connects to your PIM, Akeneo, Salsify or others, and gives each product a persistent identity with material, care and repair data behind a QR code. That puts the data in the hands of whoever decides on resale, repair or recycling, and once the delegated act sets the fields, it can feed into the textile DPP. You'll still need your own workflow for returns and for documenting derogations; we don't replace that. Book a strategy session to talk it through with your data.

Sources

• Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 (ESPR), EUR-Lex: eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1781/oj
• European Commission, ban on destruction of unsold clothes and shoes enters into application (17 July 2026): environment.ec.europa.eu/news
• European Commission, Digital Product Passport roadmap: single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu