Some 8.9 million pieces of unsold clothing burned in the Netherlands per year

Around 8.9 million pieces of unsold clothing are burned annually in the Netherlands. Returns are the biggest issue, with about a third ending up destroyed, Trouw reports based on a new study for the European Environment Agency (EEA).

Across Europe, 4 to 9 percent of all clothing end up destroyed. That is between 264,000 and 594,000 tons of destroyed textiles per year, according to the study by the Flemish Institute for Technological Research on behalf of the EEA. That creates up to 5.6 million tons of CO2, comparable to the annual emissions of 1 million petrol cars.

On average, a third of all returned garments and a fifth of unsold stock end up in the furnace, the researchers said.

Thuiswinel denied that so much clothing gets destroyed. According to the Dutch trade organization, its own study, conducted by research agency FFact in Rotterdam showed that only 0.35 percent of all textiles on the Dutch market are discarded.

But, according to Tom Duhoux, project leader of the EEA study, there is very little transparency in the sector. Clothing brands are generally not keen to share how many clothes they produce, let alone what they discard. This study is based on extensive literature and confidential conversations with various directors of large and small retailers to verify the figures.

The European Commission is currently working on a ban on destroying clothing, which includes requiring brands to be transparent about their stock. The rules are expected to take effect in 2026.

“Originally, the request was to implement it immediately,” Duhoux told Trouw. “But research is currently still underway into how to avoid any perverse effects of the ban. I don’t think it is the intention to simply export unusable textiles to poorer countries in Africa, among others, where they would ultimately end up in a landfill.”