Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 8 Nov 2023

Section 1 sets out the types of products that would be covered by the Bill. The Bill aims to ban the deliberate or wilful destruction of brand-new or unused items. Those items include electronic products, textiles, clothes, shoes, furniture, ink cartridges, hygiene products, food preservation and cooking equipment, leisure products, books and school equipment. To set the context for why the Bill deals with those items and why it is necessary, online sales - or e-commerce, as they are now known - have been rising and really took off during the Covid pandemic. With this comes an inevitable rise in the number of items being returned, with many large retailers offering free returns. This summer, DHL carried out research, surveying 1,000 online retailers. This research found that there had been a 19% increase in returns in the last two years alone. Of the 1,000 online retailers surveyed, 17% said they are now turning to disposal as their primary method of handling returns. During the debate on Second Stage, we talked about how disgusted people would be to think that the perfectly good, unused items they are repackaging to send back are simply being dumped. Likewise, any right-minded person would be shocked and horrified to now that items made with finite resources, such as lithium batteries and electronic equipment like laptops, iPads, phones, Dyson hoovers, hair dryers and flatscreen TVs, are all going straight to landfill simply because they are last year's model or have spent too long on the shelf of a warehouse facility.

Amazon is the largest offender of this practice. Its business model is designed that it becomes more costly to store the item for third-party sellers. I have a choice to either ship back the item to wherever it has originated or else to send it to landfill, incineration or recycling. That is the practice that is going on. This has been admitted to. The German director of Amazon publicly said that any effort spent on unsold or returned products, such as reprocessing or rebranding, affects the profit margin and, therefore, for products with small profit margins or low value, it is more lucrative to destroy them than to resell or donate them. As I said, most people would be horrified by that practice, but the scale of it is enormous. Optoro, which is an online platform that helps retailers with their returns and the logistics of it, has stated that only 50% of returns make it back to the stock inventory, and 50% are disposed of.

For those who are interested, and it is disappointing to see the turnout from the Government benches, this morning we heard from a French Assembly member who talked about why France decided to go ahead with its own legislation rather than waiting for the EU directive. One reason is because of how long EU processes take. The previous trilogue on the ecodesign directive is due in December but already they are talking about a delay of enactment of two and a half years or, as some of the negotiators are calling for, up to five years. It only covers textiles, and electronic items may be the first item to be considered if any new items are added to the category. The French Assembly member, Ms Alma Dufour, today outlined why France, as part of its circular economy, decided to act as a lone EU member state. That was on the back of an exposé in France that showed 3 million items in Amazon fulfilment centres were dumped in one year alone. It was interesting to hear Ms Dufour outline that the French Bill is not perfect, that it is still under the review process, and that there are loopholes around the wilful damaging of items and the transportation of items into other EU jurisdictions, but she was categorical in saying that is not a reason to not proceed and that waiting for the EU to come in with a lesser proposal was not a runner for the French Government. It is interesting that it was introduced by President Emmanuel Macron. He is no radical. He is not a Green Party member. He is a centrist, and yet he saw fit to introduce this legislation. Here we are with a Green Party Government and we are being told that it would rather wait around for an inferior EU proposal that will not come into effect for a number of years.

As I said, I hear that the Government is not opposing the Bill but I gather that the hope is that this Bill will die a death and we will as a country have to accept the inferior EU proposal, which will only cover textiles and will not come into effect for years. I will leave it there for the moment.

First, I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I particularly thank Senators Boylan, Ó Donnghaile, Gavan and Warfield for this simple, but important, Bill.

Following on from what Senator Boylan has said, there are things happening in Europe. They are, perhaps, too slow. We should not wait. We have a strong record. We have the Green Party in government. It is appropriate, and the right time, to pursue this legislation. It can always be amended, improved and changed, but let us send out a strong signal that we mean business here. I know the Minister of State particularly does.

I thank Senator Boylan for an informative briefing in Leinster House today in which we saw some shocking audiovisual aspects of this issue. Clearly, there is a massive global overproduction of many consumer goods, such as cloths, but also clothing, textile products, etc. Every year, millions of unsustainable unsold products are destroyed. They are not passed on. They are not given to anyone, and that is a deliberate policy. The Minister of State understands that policy well, as everyone in this House does.

One possible reason being argued and put forward by Amazon is that because of EU VAT rules, it can be cheaper or easier for companies to dump or to incinerate unsold goods rather than donate them to charity. There are reasons they fear, if they go to charity, they may be released or distributed somewhere else but that is not a good enough reason for what is being done. For others, it is about protecting their brand image exclusively. It is preferable for them to destroy these products rather than sell them or to have them resold at cheaper prices.

I would like to refer to investigations by Greenpeace, an organisation that does exceptional work all over the globe. From these investigations and other investigations, it has been identified that many companies are involved in the practice of dumping these products. The most high-profile investigations have focused on Amazon, but there are others where allegations are very significant - we saw some of them in the visuals today. I have looked at documentaries on the BBC. Some extracts from ITN were used at today's briefing in Leinster House to illustrate the enormity of this situation. It is important we acknowledge that many of these unsold goods are dumped, particularly in the UK, in France and in Germany, but in Ireland too. We heard today reports about luxury fashion items from Burberry, which destroyed €28 million worth of unsold clothes, perfumes and accessories, with over €90 million of clothes dumped. What a disgrace. What an absolute scandal. Something needs to be done. Richemont, which as the Minister of State will be aware owns the exclusive brands of Cartier and Montblanc, has been accused of destroying unsold watches worth hundreds of millions of euro. What a waste. The production of these goods has social, environmental and human ramifications and costs and we need to address them. These concerns were highlighted today at Senator Boylan's informative preparatory session providing background detail on this Bill.

When one looks further, one can see that Greenpeace has highlighted some of these impacts, which may include the mining of rare and precious materials and the possibility of using child labour. Child labour is involved. When one drills down and pulls at the different parts of all of this production, one has to look at issues. Yesterday, we had another briefing in the audiovisual room about the international use of child labour for cheap products which flood world markets for clothes and consumer goods. There are many components to this. There are concerns that the production of high volumes of electronic devices consumes significant amounts of water. There are many issues around this such as the issue of incineration, and what a waste that is. There are many concerns about the practices of richer nations such as the exportation of their waste to poor countries, or, as some call it, waste colonialisation, which has led to African beaches and deserts, including the Atacama Desert, being destroyed with unwanted clothes. It is a world stage, but it is a global impact. In Ireland, we can do something and this Bill seeks to do it.

It is important that we look at what happens in other jurisdictions. There are different things in different jurisdictions. As Senator Boylan said, are we to hang around and wait for our European counterparts to take the lead on aspects of this such as clothing? We can lead from the front now and we can do something about it. We can look at the ecodesign of sustainable production regulations. Europe has proposed the establishment of a framework, which the Minister of State would be aware of, which has specific objectives, goals and aspirations, but at the end of the day, we need progress and we need it fast.

I acknowledge the Library and Research Service of this House that prepared an extensive briefing paper on this issue. It was released today, but they have been doing ongoing work. I seriously encourage people to look at what is going on. When we talk about best practice, the Library and Research Service has identified issues around initiatives in Scotland, Spain, Belgium and, as we heard in Senator Boylan's briefing, France.

This is an exceptionally good Bill. It is an important Bill. I hope the Government will accept it, but let us progress it further. As Senator Boylan says, there may be room for improvement and additions, but it is a good place to start. I believe the Minister of State is committed to it. I believe many Members on the Government benches are committed to it. It is a plank of Green Party policy in government and one that the Green Party has demonstrated, time and again, its commitment to. The Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth, therefore, should not let his position in government in some way make him feel that he cannot push the agenda further.

I hope he will support this Sinn Féin Bill, which is admirable. It is important that it proceeds and gets enacted. It is deserving of support from every Member of this House.

I welcome this Bill. It is like something the Green Party would have written 30 years ago. We are a small party in government. It is great to see other parties, including Sinn Féin, finally bringing forward improved policies, or indeed any policies, on climate or the circular economy. It is also great that this Government, for the first time ever, has a Minister of State with responsibility for the circular economy who has done significant work on a lot of these issues. The Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth, has been funding projects all around Ireland looking at exactly these issues, including repairing items instead of dumping them. A lot of work has been done on this already. It is easy to draw up a list and say we should do all of this right now but I am afraid that while this is a very good list, implementation and action will take time. There is no point in saying that we want all of these things right now, nothing will ever be thrown away again and we are going to fine everybody. We all know that will not happen overnight. Even if we enacted the Bill tomorrow, there would be war over it because we have no systems in place for this. The Green Party is the only one that has ever talked about this happening. It is great that Sinn Féin is bringing this to the table. I did not see it in the party's policy documents when I was thinking of joining only four short years ago but I am really glad to see it there now. It is good to be imitated in politics, as they say. First they laugh at one and then they imitate one so I am really glad that Sinn Féin is copping on to the really important work that needs to be done here.

I would like to mention a few things that have been done already by the Minister of State, Deputy Smyth. An enormous amount of work is being done on fixing clothes and using second-hand clothes. Myself and my three Seanad colleagues often make videos about all the clothes we are wearing coming from second-hand shops. I bought this for €4 from Oxfam in Wexford two weeks ago. I am really glad to see this is coming from somebody other than the Green Party because it takes everybody. If we are serious about climate change, climate action and having a proper circular economy, we need all of the parties on board.

Would Senator Boylan have let her in?

This is a Bill to prevent the dumping of unsold products. There is a moral imperative on commercial bodies that are taking part in the circular economy to fulfil their obligations in the same way that we expect that individuals will segregate their waste. It is for that reason that I brought in regulations earlier in the summer that require commercial operators, entities and businesses to segregate their waste correctly. As a result, we have much higher streams of available plastics and organics for recycling than we would have had last year.

The Government is not opposing this Bill and supports its objectives. I welcome the opportunity to discuss it here today. I want to focus on the things that are needed to make this work, one of which is a supervisory regime. We need to have some way to see how much product is being destroyed by companies, some way of inspecting them and some way of being able to measure what is going on. Secondly, we need to deal with the problem of transportation. This is not waste we are talking about but unsold products. One of the fundamental tenets of the EU is the free movement of goods. A company that wishes to put all of its goods in a container and ship it to some other jurisdiction within the EU that does not have these rules for destruction could do so at any time. This is not far-fetched, given that a lot of waste in Ireland is put into containers and shipped abroad, often for incineration. It is normal for goods, even low-value or waste goods, to be shipped abroad. It is for this reason that we are looking at this at an EU level. If we bring in a rule that works in one country but that simply leads to a completely ineffective regime whereby all of the materials are moved to another country in the EU that has different rules, we will not achieve anything. There are EU rules about exporting waste outside the borders of the bloc, so we are already covered on that and we do not expect it to leave the EU but within the bloc, there is a fundamental right to move goods around. That is the reason we are looking at this ecodesign and sustainable products regulation. It is not a directive because directives take a long time to transpose, but a regulation which will have immediate effect across all EU countries. The timetable is for it to be completed before the end of the year. I will update the House on where we are with this regulation. The European Council agreed an approach whereby it would only apply to clothing but the European Parliament went further than that and decided it should apply to clothing, footwear and electronics. The Council, the Parliament and the European Commission are having their trilogue negotiations at the moment and we will see what they arrive at. The aim is to create an EU-wide framework to prevent unsold goods from being shuttled around the EU and destroyed.

Regarding the French approach, I met with the Minister of the Ecological Transition, Mr. Christophe Béchu, in May of this year. He will be in Ireland shortly and I will meet him again and will certainly discuss his experience of implementing the national law in France. I am always keen to see what is happening in other jurisdictions. My understanding of the law in France is that it prevents companies from destroying unsold goods but it does not prevent them from recycling them. Companies cannot put the goods into incineration or landfill but they are not forced to resell or donate them and my understanding is that the goods can be recycled. Furthermore, the law does not deal with the fact that the goods can be transported out of the country very easily, much more easily than in Ireland. I am interested in talking to Mr. Béchu about the outcome of the law they have introduced. All of that being said, I support this legislation. Indeed, I support any member of the Opposition who puts forward a Bill that is trying to achieve environmental aims. I support the aims of this Bill and the Government is not going to oppose it. I thank the Senators who tabled it.

I want to pick up on a couple of points that the Minister of State made. He is correct in saying that the EU is introducing a regulation but we already know from the trilogue negotiations that the proposal is for it not to be implemented immediately. There will be a delay in the enactment of the EU regulation. The first Amazon fulfilment centre opened here in October 2022 and we implored the Minister of State, when legislation on the circular economy was being brought forward, to act then before a problem was created here. No doubt, we potentially have a problem with anybody who sells online but once the Amazon fulfilment centre opened, we knew we would definitely have a problem because this is part of Amazon's business model. This is what the company actively does. It has admitted it and has been exposed in numerous EU member states. Now we have a fulfilment centre in Ireland. It has been here for a year and God knows how many items have been dumped in that time.

As the Minister of State said, it is absolutely imperative that commercial bodies segregate their waste, as householders have been doing for a long time, but this is not waste we are talking about but unsold products. What we have heard from the French evaluation process is that there has not been a single case of textiles being dumped in the last three years since the legislation was introduced in that country. Regarding Amazon, what the French have found is that there has been a marked increase in the number of donations from the company's fulfilment centres. One of the loopholes causing concern is around the damaging of goods and how that might be policed. My Bill addresses the issue of the wilful damaging of products. Of course, compliance is key but we have covered the loophole that exists in the French legislation in terms of retailers marking products that are perfectly good as damaged in order to get around the legislation.

While we do not have exact statistics on the volume of products that are being dumped, we can listen to the experts on this. As I said, DHL, which is an international shipping company, has asked its customers about this. It has found that there has been a 19% increase in returns and that 17% of businesses are dealing with those returns through disposal. Optoro, a logistics company that works with online retailers in managing returns, has said that 50% of items are dumped. Amazon alone, as we discussed previously, has 175 fulfilment centres. If one extrapolates from the exposés in France or Britain, we are talking about 1 billion items a year being dumped.

The scale of the problem is enormous. We do not have time to wait; we need to be bold. We need to be more like the French and not wait around for the EU regulations, which are lesser and - I cannot use the word "radical" - not as ambitious as the French legislation.

On transport, it was admitted again by Alma Dufour that you cannot stop companies transporting to other countries. Compliance is key, and resourcing of procedures relating to non-compliance is one of the elements they think will come out of the evaluation process. We live on an island. The fact that companies might possibly transport waste elsewhere is not a reason to not do things. We have to crack down on this business model. The legislation before the House is constructive. It is trying to do something that other countries have already pushed ahead and done. The Minister of State said he is not opposed to this, but I do not get any impression that it will be implemented. That is disappointing.

I thank Sinn Féin Senators for publishing this Bill and bringing it before the House. I have not bought second-hand clothes but I have been known to have clothes repaired, particularly suits and overcoats. That is important. They are expensive products and it is right they be repaired when it is possible to do so.

A number of companies, such as Cartier and Burberry, were mentioned. I certainly do not frequent their stores. I agree that their business model has to be called into question. I know why they do not want all their products out among people. In their minds, it will reduce the value of those products and the importance or cachet relating to them. However, they are clearly oversupplying. These companies are oversupplying the number of products they will sell and, therefore, the products then have to be recycled, as it were, mar dhea, disposed of or sent to dumps. There is a moral issue here.

We talk about the circular economy. The circular economy, in some cases, is that particularly textiles are produced in developing countries cheaply with low welfare, sent to the EU and other places, sold more expensively and then, in many cases, dumped back into the developing world and disposed of. There is a moral issue relating to how capitalism works and the impact it is having on the environment. Something needs to be done.

I go back to why so many goods are being produced. If you are producing goods and you know that 20% of them will not be sold every year, why would you continue to produce the same number of those products? If there was an incentive, a sort of a stick approach and a penalty on those producers, perhaps they then would not produce as much. Therefore, we would not need a Bill like this. I agree with that sort of approach. It makes absolute sense.

As I said, there is a real moral issue in this. I have seen video clips, and I know the Minister of State and all of us are strong advocates of recycling. Some people say we should not recycle plastic bottles because they end up in rivers elsewhere. I do not know if that is the case but it goes against everything we have been taught about recycling. There are issues with how we dispose of goods. Regarding where they end up, there is regulation at European level. If product has been shipped from Galway to, perhaps, Germany for incineration, that is a solution. Whether it is the right solution, I do not know. However, that is a solution and we know what is happening. Seeing some of the images in different parts of the world of textiles and whatever else being dumped, it is not right. There is a moral issue. If something like this acted as a deterrent to major chains with regard to overproduction, that would be a benefit.

I commend my colleague, Senator Boylan, on the way she has led on this issue for some considerable time now. The Minister of State may recall that she originally wanted to amend the circular economy Bill but, regrettably, the Minister rejected that amendment at the time, which would have put the essence of this Bill into practice.

I will take up Senator Kyne’s valid point on what kind of model allows this to happen. It is something we need to dwell on. Frankly, it is model of shocking exploitation and the very worst aspects of capitalism. My old boss, Jack O’Connor, referred to it as “tooth-and-claw capitalism”.

I could talk about Burberry, Zara and H&M – household brands that are in shopping centres right throughout the country, all of which have ploughed their products into the ground as policy. However, I will mention Shein in particular because it is so well known. Shein is an online clothes company that opened its Dublin headquarters in May. There have been many reports in which concerns were raised about its business model and how it falls short of protecting workers’ rights, human rights and the environment. Basically, reports have highlighted that Shein has 6,000 clothing factories in China. Some are reported as paying people as little as 4 cent per item. People are working 18-hour shifts and are required to produce 500 items each. The products are cheap and often made from synthetic fossil-fuel based fabrics containing toxic dyes and microplastics. The business model is one of ultra-fast fashion that produces up to 10,000 new products every day. When you have a model like that and that level of exploitation, it allows companies to make a very calculated decision to the effect that it is better for them to plough products into the ground because they are so cheaply produced. That way, they can still maintain the value of the products they do sell. That is the model. It is rotten to the core. I could give loads of other examples.

That is why there is a real imperative here. I agree with Senator Kyne that there is a moral imperative to take action. Of course, we are pleased the Minister of State is not opposing the Bill, but there is a distinct lack of enthusiasm on his part, if he does not mind me saying so. I am genuinely puzzled by that. As a Green Party Minister of State, he should not just be allowing this Bill to pass, rather, he should be telling us when he will be back for Report Stage in order that we can get this done in the Seanad. He should tell us if there are amendments to be made and let us get those done too. Let us get the legislation through the Dáil also and get it working.

As Senator Boylan pointed out, in reality, we are some years away from EU regulations being in place, implemented and working. She also already pointed out that the EU is talking about quite a narrow frame of reference. As the Minister of State acknowledged, it is just textile clothing at the moment. It may go further, but we do not know. The Bill before us deals with electronic products, textiles, clothes, shoes, furniture, ink cartridges, hygiene products, food preservation and cooking equipment, leisure products, books and school equipment. Imagine if we took the approach to banning smoking in pubs that the Minister of State appears to be taking in respect of this matter. Imagine if we said we would wait until the EU reached agreement on the matter. We would still be waiting. As a country, we need to take the lead on this. That is what Senator Boylan’s Bill is giving the Minister of State and all of us an opportunity to do. These shocking practices need to be highlighted and curtailed.

I refer to the video we saw earlier as part of Senator Boylan’s presentation. Every school should show it. It lasts four and a half minutes and one sees first hand the practices of Amazon in ploughing new products into the ground. Brand new laptops, brand new hoovers and all types of electronic items are literally being ploughed into the ground in order to maintain the profits of the companies involved. They factor all this in. It is cheaper to plough excess products into the ground than allow them onto the market because this would impact on both the price and these companies' profits. This is all calculated. The model is rotten to the core and has to be challenged. France has taken first steps. Why would the Minister of State not take steps on behalf of our country and be enthusiastic about the Bill? He has full support from everyone in this Chamber, to be fair.

I commend Senator Boylan on the Bill. The frustrating part of it is that unless we get the Government to really engage on the Bill, we will not get it completed. What a shocking missed opportunity that would be. We want to work with the Minister of State on this. I ask him to please work with us on this Bill.

I meant to say this when I responded to the Minister of State. On the French law, he said it was not required to donate the items. However, we heard today that the French law was broken up into two sections. The first relates to essential items, which are hygiene products, baby food, nappies, children’s clothes and things like that. They are obliged to be donated under the French legislation. The reason other products, or non-essential items, were excluded in the French law is because France is a particular case in that it has many luxury brands. The lobbying done by the likes of Louis Vuitton was enormous.

The French Government basically capitulated on that point and said that because there could not be a distinction for the luxury brands because they did not want to donate - heaven forbid - their luxury items to the lesser classes in society, it would not require non-essential items to be donated. Instead, they would have to be reused, resold or recycled. Our Bill does not make such a distinction because, as others have said, it is the business model that needs to change. This is designed as a stick to force that model to change and to force the overproduction of items to stop. If Burberry, Louis Vuitton or other designers want to maintain brand value and think it is appropriate to destroy items in order to do so, they need to start making fewer items rather than justify destroying them. As I have said, there is a distinction in what we have done. We have learned from the French example. I just wanted to make sure the Minister of State is aware of that clear distinction. Our Bill does not allow for recycling but requires donation, reuse or reselling.

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I also welcome my comrades from Trinity College Ógra Shinn Féin. There is a Trinity Senator here whom they can meet tonight. I will begin by commending my comrade, Senator Boylan, and Brian Marron in her office who have worked tirelessly and done a very good job on this issue. I do not want to go over issues that have been covered and I am coming in at a late point in the debate but it is no exaggeration to say that, when all of socioeconomic and environmental challenges of the day are considered, the destruction of unused unsold clothing represents the most wasteful scenario of all. The dominant approach to date has been to blame consumers for fast fashion but the reality is that dumping clothing is an intrinsic part of the business model in the fashion industry. This kind of overproduction does not happen by accident. It is a fundamental part of achieving projected profits. It is actively pursued and actively invested in. As has been mentioned, Burberry, H&M and Zara have all been caught wilfully engaging in the destruction of vast quantities of clothing. From 2013 to 2017, the total value of merchandise destroyed by Burberry alone was £90 million. That has been put on the record tonight.

The Minister of State mentioned the export of waste. We made attempts to bring this forward in the Circular Economy and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2022. Our rising levels of waste are unsustainable and are threatening our achievement of EU recycling targets. The Minister of State touched on our continued reliance on exporting waste, including municipal waste, hazardous waste and packaging waste. We are only recycling 62% of packaging waste. When I go to the supermarket, I wonder why vegetables come in plastic packaging. I do not want my peppers in plastic packaging. Why are they cheaper than the loose vegetables? Our increasing levels of waste are undoing our efforts to recycle more.

I commend Senator Boylan's work on this Bill. I spoke on Second Stage. I would welcome Government enthusiasm and ambition in respect of this Bill.