Across the European Union, an era of quiet destruction has been legislated out of existence: retailers may no longer burn, bury, or slash their unsold garments, and must instead find them new lives through resale or donation. The rule confronts a system that long treated surplus as strategy rather than failure, and it arrives as Australia — importing over a billion garments a year with no reliable accounting of what disappears — watches from a distance. The question now is whether accountability for wasted clothing will remain a European experiment or become a shared standard for wealthy consu