Rissanen The simplest answer across the board is that today, quantitatively, there’s more stuff than there ever has been before. Fashion cycles have also gotten shorter because of the internet and fast fashion, so there’s a push to constantly put new merchandise out on the market. So when you combine these two, we are now literally at a place where we no longer have anywhere for this stuff to go other than up a chimney. Chavie Lieber Is it just clothing that gets destroyed? Timo Rissanen No, this is not limited to apparel. I saw a few months ago that Amazon was being called out in Germany for destroying tons of returned items, like mattresses, washing machines, dishwashers, and cellphones. Chavie Lieber Where does the actual destroying happen? Timo Rissanen A lot of it is done in India. There’s one town in India, Panipat, that specializes in shredding, and there’s a horrendous short film that documents women shredding clothes that are brand new. The film shows the women speculating that water in the West must be so expen- sive, and that people can’t afford to do their laundry, and so that’s why it’s cheaper for them to throw stuff out. Hearing that is really uncomfortable. Incineration happens everywhere, from America to Sweden. Chavie Lieber What are some of the environmental impacts of destroying excess inventory? Timo Rissanen The most obvious one is the carbon emission from burn- ing. We should be moving away from all forms of burn- ing. Polyester now accounts for about 60 percent of the total fiber market, and it comes from oil. So you could make the case that when we burn polyester, we are burning oil. There is a contribution to CO2 that is hap- pening there, and there’s also a ton of chemicals and finishings embedded in clothing and textiles through the dyeing. When this stuff is burned, it filters into the air But really, where it gets insane is thinking about clothes that were never worn in the first place. The fabric was made, the garments were made, the labor was put in, and then the stuff gets burned. It represents all kinds of different waste across the system. Chavie Lieber Why can’t excess inventory be recycled or reused? Timo Rissanen Some of it can be. Different kinds of garments are easier than others. One way to recycle clothing is to shred it and to turn it into insulation, and there are fabrics that are quite good at being turning into new fiber, spun into yarn, and then woven into clothes. But the minute you start mixing fibers, like polyester with cotton, the options for recycling become more limited. Then there’s the obstacles of buttons and zippers. Before a garment can be put through a shredder, all the buttons and zippers must be removed, and that takes manual labor. With any kind of waste management like this, there’s a cost attached to it, and it’s often cheaper just to destroy it. Chavie Lieber Why can’t the clothing be donated? Timo Rissanen Historically, a lot of the donations have gone to Africa, Latin America, South America, and to some countries in Asia. But in the last couple of years, a number of Af- rican countries, like Kenya and Uganda, have actually banned the importation of secondhand clothing from the West. It suppresses their own textile and apparel industry, since they can’t compete with the volume and the very low price of the secondhand goods. Chavie Lieber What is the theory for luxury brands destroying their extra merch? Timo Rissanen They see discounts and donating as a way to deval- ue their brand. They want to control how and where and at what price their goods are sold. You can go to a place like Century 21 in New York and you’ll find certain brands have their stock there that’s two or three seasons old and heavily discounted. Some brands are clearly fine with that, and others are not. Chavie Lieber Wouldn’t they rather earn a profit than nothing at all? Wouldn’t Chanel prefer to mark down its $3,500 bag by $300 and still make $3,000? Timo Rissanen This is where we get to the thing that nobody wants to talk about: The retail price of a luxury product has nothing to do with its actual value. When you buy something from Chanel or Gucci and you pay full retail, that money is actually paying for the massive advertising campaigns. If Chanel destroys a dress it IN CONVERSA TION tried to sell for $1,200, it hasn’t really lost $1,200. I don’t think Chanel even paid $100 [to make] that dress. And the money they’d lose would probably just be recouped through fragrances. Chavie Lieber As someone who is a part of the fashion world, can you understand the argument for destroying things in order to save a company’s prestige factor? Timo Rissanen No. I cannot. We have arrived at a point where I think we need to have some very honest conversations about what type of values this industry has. Chavie Lieber Do you think companies will follow in Burberry’s foot- steps and stop destroying their merch? Timo Rissanen I think so. I do think it will take some time because we are talking about a whole system, and it will not come to a halt because of a little bit of bad publicity. But I do think that being called out forces brands to take a look at what’s happening and start to have conversations about what they can do about it. Chavie Lieber What can shoppers do? Timo Rissanen On a very simple level, figure out which things bring you the most satisfaction and then buy those things. We are all prone to impulse-buying, which is what I’d encourage to limit. I also recommend buying second- hand if you are interested in environmental impact. With Chaive Lieber and Timo Rissanen 13
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