Pc Destruction
Charise Farag
Col. Ken "Wolf" Ekman, 8th Fighter Wing commander (center, left), speaks to 8th Maintenance Group leadership following a successful Emergency Destruction of Munitions simulation, held in conjunction with Exercise Beverly Midnight 15-1 at Kunsan Air Base, Republic of Korea, Oct. 23, 2014. EDM would be conducted to prevent enemies from gaining access to critical assets at Kunsan Air Base to use against the U.S. Armed Forces and its allies. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Katrina Heikkinen/ Released)
More than 80 Blu-109 and Mark-84 bombs sit on display at the Wolf Pack Munitions Storage Area, Kunsan Air Base, Republic of Korea, following a successful emergency destruction of munitions simulation, Oct. 23, 2014. Wolf Pack Airmen completed hands-on emergency destruction of munitions training in conjunction with Exercise Beverly Midnight 15-1. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Katrina Heikkinen/Released)
Title VI of the Clean Air ActClean Air ActA law amended by Congress in 1990. Title VI of the CAA ( ) directs EPA to protect the ozone layer through several regulatory and voluntary programs. Sections within Title VI cover production of ozone-depleting substances (ODS), the recycling and handling of ODS, the evaluation of substitutes, and efforts to educate the public. authorizes EPA to manage the phaseout of ozone-depleting substances (ODS). Surplus ODS must be stored, reused (after recycling or reclamation), or destroyed.
This technical report on ODS Destruction in the United States and Abroad (April 2021) (pdf) (1.6 MB) provides information on the sources of ODS for destruction, technologies used in the United States and globally, as well as best practices for the safe, environmentally-sound collection, recovery, transport, and destruction of these substances and other fluorinated compounds, i.e. hydrofluorocarbons.
The table below lists the facilities that are commercially available to destroy ODS. This list is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an endorsement by EPA of any entity listed or its products, practices, or services.
Listed companies are responsible for obtaining proper permitting for the waste that they handle or destroy, as well as the waste that they import from outside of the United States. In some cases, ODS are considered hazardous waste, and facilities must abide by applicable regulations.
Figure 1 shows a steady increase in the percentage of individuals who purchased clothes and shoes online between 2020 and 2022. Those aged 16-44 years made up the highest share of individuals purchasing online (up to 76%). However, the increase in the online purchasing of clothing and shoes is greater for those between 45 and 74 years old (Eurostat, 2023b).
In the EU, consumers that have bought a product or service online have the right to cancel and return their order within 14 days without justification. For products bought in a shop, there is no EU legal right of return of goods for exchange or refund unless the item is faulty. However, many shops voluntarily allow customers to return or exchange goods during a certain time period (EU, 2023; Nestler et al., 2021).
The return rate refers to the number of purchased items that are returned in relation to the total number of items sold. Return rates for fashion and lifestyle products are significantly higher than those observed for other product categories. The inability to closely inspect or touch and feel products before purchase, combined with significant sizing variations between brands, make apparel and footwear especially prone to high return rates. 70% of returns are caused by buyer-perceived poor fit or style (Zomer and van Kempen, 2019; WHY5 research, 2021; Ader et al., 2021; Nestler et al., 2021).
An analysis of more than 1,000 records of returned items from Galaxus, the largest Swiss online retailer, also indicates that higher priced products are more likely to be returned. Within a product category, higher priced brands/products were found to have a higher return rate than the average return rate of that product category.
For companies, optimising the return strategy is key to reducing the amount of (excessive) returns. This can be achieved through the implementation of strategies such as avoiding and gatekeeping returns (Frei et al., 2020).
Gatekeeping returns strategy: Limiting returns through initiatives at the point of return can also reduce them. This gatekeeping strategy includes raising awareness about the economic, environmental and climate costs associated with returns and not providing free returns on purchases made online (Frei et al., 2020). Although EU rules provide consumers with the right to cancel and return products or services purchased online within 14 days of an order, they also state that the seller can charge for the return and/or not cover the shipping costs of the return, as long as this is clearly stated at the time of purchase (EU, 2011, 2023). Additionally, offering free returns up to 30, 50 or even more days after a purchase has a significant impact on resale potential (Roland Berger et al., 2023; Frei et al., 2022; Ader et al., 2021). Limiting the return period can therefore have a positive impact on the probability of selling an eventual return.
Despite the above arguments, returns are not fundamentally the issue. Allowing for returns is important to ensure that customers only buy what is necessary, fits and will be used, and to allow the garment to be sold to someone else.
In addition to large volumes of returned products from online sales discussed above, there are also large volumes of unsold textiles in Europe. These textiles are neither sold online nor in physical shops. Unsold textiles are often due to rapidly changing fashion and the many new designs put on the market throughout a year.
Unsold products can be either overstocks (products that are produced but have never been sold), obsolete products (products for which there is no longer any demand) or products that are damaged or recalled by their manufacturer because of quality issues (Roberts et al., 2022). Overstock and obsolete products are the result of a mismatch between what is produced and demanded. This mismatch can be due to difficulty in forecasting, market dynamics and a conscious business strategy.
Large geographical variations in consumption also make sales challenging to predict. For physical stores, the challenge of forecasting is aggravated by physical conditions. Every store has limited storage capacity and this is particularly true for smaller retailers. Therefore, stores cannot accept all products at once and need to remove unsold goods to make space for the next collection (Tanaka et al., 2019).
Brands, especially those in the fast fashion sector, often prefer overstock to reduce lead time and avoid the risk of not being able to meet demand and generate the related profit (Roberts et al., 2022).
The majority of labour-intensive clothing production takes place in the global South, mostly in Asia, where low-wages are prevalent (Dzhengiz et al., 2023), making it more advantageous to produce too much rather than lose potential sales (Roberts et al., 2022). This is further aggravated because of economies of scale and scope. Economies of scale refers to the fact that it is generally cheaper per product to produce more pieces of one product due to efficiency gains, whereas economies of scope refers to the fact that it is often cheaper on average per product when you also produce a variety of closely related products (Investopedia, 2023b). Consequently, not only is a diverse portfolio on average less costly to produce, having a high product diversification and producing large quantities is less costly on average per product than producing smaller quantities and fewer types of products (Singh et al., 2019; Roberts et al., 2022). This situation then leads to the overproduction of product types, styles, colours and sizes.
Open data and transparency regarding the handling of returned and unsold textile products in Europe is currently lacking; the overall size and impact of textile product destruction remains uncertain. The practice of destroying returned and unsold clothing and other textiles has been happening in the fashion industry since at least the 1980s (Napier and Sanguineti, 2020).
Figure 4 shows the calculated proportion of textiles that is destroyed out of the total volume of online sales and the total volume of products put on the market (stock) based on available data. As products sold online are part of products put on the market, there is a partial overlap in the data. This is because it is unclear what proportion of the unsold products are returned products. From the available data, it can be estimated that 4-9% of all textile products put on the market are destroyed without ever being used for their intended purpose.
The destruction of customer returns and unsold textiles have direct environmental and climate impacts. These arise from the processes of handling returns and unsold textiles, and the destruction itself. Importantly, there are also indirect impacts from their original production, even if they are never used.
Unsold textiles are associated with direct and indirect environmental and climate impacts. These impacts include energy use related to storage and the additional transport at the end of a sales period when overstocks are returned to warehouses, from where they are often transported again to be sold at discount through other channels or to be discarded (Tanaka et al., 2019). Lastly, destruction in the form of incineration not only releases CO2, but also other air pollutants, depending on how technically advanced the incineration is (Elia, 2019). Unsold textiles have significant negative environment and climate impacts from the resource use, production and transportation of textiles products that are never consumed but end up being destroyed.
A large share of unsold products is ultimately exported out of Europe. The majority of these end up in Africa and Asia, aimed for reuse or recycling (ETC CE, 2023). In Africa there are, however, signs that a large portion ends up as waste, mostly in open landfills, or is incinerated in open air, releasing toxins directly without filtering (ETC CE, 2023).