The world being as it is you're likely correct and your cynicism makes sense, but I'd like to think somehow you're wrong.

That EU regulators actually saw need for such regulations makes me both sad and annoyed because they ought not be necessary. What's wrong with clothing manufacture, commerce and trade, and fashion that brand-new clothing can be just trashed and destroyed? Right, we know it's a rhetorical question but we must continue to ask it.

What's happening is sheer madness! If aliens were to witness this from a holistic perspective they'd arrive at conclusion the inhabitants of this planet are de-arranged. Why would any species take effort to gather resources/grow raw materials such as resource-hungry cotton then take time and more effort to manufacture it into useful products then move it holus-bolus to another part of the planet only to discard and destroy it unused—and harm the planet’s ecological systems in the process? That is unless they’re mad.

In a nutshell, why not do something more useful and productive and less wasteful?

What upsets me so much about this unnecessary waste is that when I was a kid clothes were expensive, my parents struggled to send us to school neat, tidy and well-dressed. When I ripped holes in the knees of my grey school pants through rough play rather than buy new ones necessity meant my mother would spend hours at the sewing machine mending them.

What’s happening with these clothes is unnecessary waste and vandalism on a grand scale, and the fashion industry along with unethical marketing practices are largely responsible. People not only have too much disposable income but ‘fashion’ has convinced them their clothes are out of fashion almost from the moment they’ve bought them, these days, the notion of actually wearing one’s clothes until they’re worn out is almost inconceivable.

Little wonder megatons of discarded barely-used and new clothes are polluting the planet.