When Did Fabric Become Disposable?

Until recently, I had no idea that large fashion companies could routinely destroy clothing and footwear that had never been sold or worn.

I suspect many other people are unaware of it too.

We tend to imagine that unsold clothing eventually reaches a sale rail, an outlet shop, a charity, a textile recycler or perhaps a warehouse somewhere. We do not necessarily imagine perfectly new products being deliberately destroyed simply because they have not sold.

However, this happens on a scale large enough for the European Union to introduce new rules specifically intended to stop it.

What are the new rules?

On 19 July 2026, a new EU ban came into effect preventing large companies from destroying unsold clothing, clothing accessories and footwear.

The ban forms part of the EU’s wider Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, which is intended to reduce waste and encourage products to remain useful for longer.

Under the new rules, large businesses should prioritise keeping unsold products in use. Depending on the item and its condition, that could mean:

• selling it through another outlet

• donating it

• reusing or repurposing it

• repairing or refurbishing it

• remanufacturing it into another product

The rules currently apply to large businesses. Medium-sized companies are due to come under the ban from 19 July 2030, while micro and small businesses are generally exempt so that they are not faced with a disproportionate administrative burden.

That distinction is important. This is not a rule aimed at an independent maker who occasionally has an unusable sample, a damaged piece of fabric or a product that cannot be sold.

It is aimed at the much larger problem of companies producing such vast quantities of clothing that brand-new items can be treated as waste when demand does not match supply.

Does the ban cover every situation?

There are some sensible exceptions.

A company may still be allowed to destroy an item when there is a genuine reason it cannot safely or legally be used. This might include products that present a health or safety risk, goods that do not comply with the law, counterfeit products or items that have been damaged beyond reasonable repair.

Even where an exception applies, businesses are expected to follow the waste hierarchy, with recycling prioritised over simply disposing of or burning the products.

The purpose of the ban is not to insist that every item must be sold regardless of its condition. It is to stop the needless destruction of usable products merely because destroying them may be easier or commercially preferable.

There are also new transparency requirements. Businesses covered by the wider regulation may have to disclose information about the unsold goods they discard, including the quantity, weight, reasons for discarding them and what happens to them afterwards.

That matters because it begins to make a largely hidden part of the fashion industry more visible.

Why were the rules needed?

According to the European Commission, an estimated 4% to 9% of textile products placed on the European market are destroyed before they are ever used.

That could amount to hundreds of thousands of tonnes of textiles each year.

These are not necessarily old garments that have reached the end of a long life. They can be newly manufactured clothes, shoes and accessories that have never belonged to anyone.

They have never been worn, repaired, altered or loved.

They were produced, transported and offered for sale, and then became waste.

Reading about this made me stop and ask a much bigger question:

When did fabric become disposable?

More than a piece of cloth

When we see a finished garment hanging in a shop, it is easy to forget everything that happened before it reached the rail.

The fibres had to be grown, gathered or manufactured. The fabric was woven or knitted, dyed and finished. Somebody developed the design and pattern. The pieces were cut and stitched before the garment was packaged and transported, sometimes across several countries.

Water, energy, raw materials, machinery, transport and human labour were involved at every stage.

Destroying a brand-new garment does not only waste the garment itself. It wastes much of what went into producing it.

For those of us who sew, the idea can feel particularly strange because we understand how much work even a simple item can contain.

We know how long it can take to choose a fabric, cut it accurately, change a thread, unpick a seam, solve a problem and finish the piece.

That knowledge changes how we look at cloth.

Makers often see fabric differently

For many makers, fabric rarely feels like something that should simply be thrown away.

We keep strangely shaped offcuts because they might be useful one day. We save short lengths of ribbon, odd buttons, small pieces of lace and thread that is too beautiful to waste.

We look at a damaged garment and wonder whether it could be repaired, altered or cut apart and turned into something entirely different.

Admittedly, this can result in several overflowing boxes of pieces being saved for “the right project”.

Not every scrap needs to be kept forever. Sometimes a material really has reached the end of its useful life.

However, there is a considerable difference between eventually discarding a tiny unusable offcut and deliberately destroying a newly manufactured garment that has never been worn.

One is the unavoidable residue of making.

The other begins with producing more than can reasonably be used or sold.

Have we forgotten how to value textiles?

There was a time when clothing was routinely repaired because replacing it was expensive.

Buttons were removed from worn-out garments and saved. A good section of fabric might be cut out and used elsewhere. Adult clothing could be remade for children. Old textiles became quilts, rugs, cleaning cloths or patches.

People did not always do this from a desire to be environmentally friendly. Often, they simply could not afford to waste useful materials.

We should not romanticise the past. Affordable clothing has made life easier for many people, and not everyone has the time, equipment, skill or physical ability to make and repair everything they wear.

The problem is not that people sometimes buy something new.

The problem begins when clothing is produced in such enormous quantities that a perfectly usable garment can be considered worthless simply because it did not sell quickly enough.

When an item costs less to replace than to repair, it changes the way we think about it.

A missing button, a small tear or an imperfect fit can become a reason to discard something rather than work with it.

Eventually, the garment is no longer seen as the result of materials, resources and labour. It becomes a temporary product that can be replaced without much thought.

What does “destroying” clothing actually mean?

When we hear the word “destroyed”, we might picture a company cutting up a garment or setting fire to it.

In practice, it can include goods being deliberately damaged or discarded as waste so that they can no longer be used for their original purpose.

Some items may be incinerated. Others may be sent through waste-treatment or recycling processes.

Recycling can certainly be better than landfill or incineration, but recycling a brand-new wearable garment is not the same as allowing somebody to wear it.

Energy and resources are still required to break the material down and create something else. Some mixed fibres, finishes, fastenings and embellishments can also make textiles difficult to recycle successfully.

The new rules therefore place more emphasis on keeping usable products in use before treating them as waste.

That is a simple principle, but an important one.

Makers see possibilities

One of the things I love about working with textiles is that a material can have many different lives.

A piece of fabric does not have to remain what it was originally intended to be.

An old garment might become part of a textile artwork. A leftover strip can introduce a line of colour into a mixed-media piece. A damaged section might be covered with hand stitch, appliqué or free-motion embroidery.

A garment that no longer fits could be altered rather than discarded.

Buttons, zips, lace and decorative details can be removed and used again.

Sometimes the wear, fading, frayed edges and imperfections are the very things that make an older textile interesting.

In the studio, we work with fabric, thread, paper, paint, Lutradur and found materials. Not everything begins as something pristine or precious.

A great deal of creativity comes from asking:

What else could this become?

That is one of the most useful things making teaches us. It encourages us to look beyond an object’s original purpose and see its remaining potential.

Making clothes from what we already have

This idea of giving textiles another life is also at the heart of Cat Nash’s sustainable clothing workshops at Eau Brink Studio.

Learners can bring almost any suitable fabric they would like to work with. That might be a piece of antique fabric that has been stored away for years, a length bought for a project that never happened, a charity-shop find, old curtains, repurposed clothing or something completely new.

The starting point does not have to be a perfect piece of dressmaking fabric.

Part of the process is learning to look at what is already available and ask what it could become. A fabric may need to be adapted, combined with another material or used in a different way from originally intended, but that is often where the most interesting ideas begin.

Cat supports learners with dressmaking, pattern drafting, alterations and garment construction, helping them create clothing that suits both the fabric and the person who will wear it.

These workshops are not only about making something new. They are also about valuing materials, developing practical skills and showing that fabric does not need to be discarded simply because its first purpose has passed.

A forgotten textile can become a wearable garment. An old piece of cloth can become something personal, useful and completely individual.

You can find details of Cat Nash’s upcoming sustainable clothing and dressmaking workshops on the Eau Brink Studio website.

The responsibility cannot rest only with shoppers

When textile waste is discussed, the advice is often directed at individual consumers.

We are told to buy fewer garments, choose better-quality clothing, repair what we own and donate what we no longer need.

These are all worthwhile actions, but individuals cannot solve a system built around enormous production volumes on their own.

A customer cannot buy an item they do not know exists in a warehouse. They cannot donate a garment that a company has chosen never to release. They cannot repair a product that was destroyed before it reached them.

Manufacturers and retailers must also take responsibility for how much they produce, how they manage unsold stock and whether products are designed to last.

That is why these new rules are significant. They move some of the responsibility back towards the companies making decisions on a much larger scale.

Sustainability does not need to mean perfection

Discussions about sustainability can quickly leave people feeling guilty.

Not everyone can make their own clothes. Not every damaged garment can be repaired. Sometimes buying something new is the most practical option.

The aim should not be to make people feel ashamed for purchasing fabric, thread or clothing.

For me, it is more about awareness.

Could a garment be altered so that it fits better?

Could a small repair give it another year of use?

Could unwanted fabric be offered to another maker, school, community group or charity?

Could a piece that is no longer wearable provide fabric, buttons, zips or inspiration for something else?

Could we pause before buying something very cheap and ask whether we genuinely want it, or whether it is likely to be discarded almost as quickly as it was purchased?

Small personal decisions will not solve the entire problem, but they can help restore some of the value we once placed on textiles.

Perhaps fabric was never disposable

Fabric carries evidence of how it was made, worn and handled.

It can hold memories, skills and hours of work. Even a small piece of cloth can contain possibilities.

The new EU ban does not apply directly to most of us in the UK, and it will not solve the worldwide problem of textile waste on its own.

However, it exposes something many people may not have realised was happening at all: brand-new clothing has been produced in such quantities that destroying it became an accepted part of doing business.

Perhaps the real question is not when fabric became disposable.

Perhaps it is why we ever allowed ourselves to believe that it was.

The next time you are about to throw away a piece of fabric or an unwanted garment, pause for a moment.

It may genuinely have reached the end of its useful life.

Or it may simply be waiting to become something else.