Fashion

The EU is making it illegal to trash unsold clothes

Half a million tonnes of clothing, no longer allowed to hit the landfill.

For years, the dirty secret of fast fashion wasn't just what got made, it was what got thrown away. Retailers churning through trends have long dumped unsold clothing, sometimes destroying it outright to clear shelf space. As of July 19, the European Union says: no more. A new rule bans large companies from destroying unsold clothing, shoes, and accessories, with medium-sized firms on the clock for 2030.

The numbers behind the practice are staggering. As Erik Barnes reports, somewhere between 264,000 and 594,000 tonnes of unused textiles get destroyed across Europe every single year. Many of those garments are synthetic, quietly shedding microplastics into soil and water as they break down. Now, instead of the landfill, companies have to find another path: discounting, donating, repairing, or recycling.

There are loopholes, of course, for damaged or counterfeit goods, but they come with paperwork and annual reports on everything discarded. The bet is bigger than waste reduction: the EU is wagering that if brands can't just torch the leftovers, they'll start making clothing worth keeping in the first place.

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And what did we learn?

Yesterday’s story about a hairstylist who solved the mystery of an ancient Roman hairstyle popular with the ladies had me curious if GOOD readers knew anything about the traditions of the Roman gents.

What happened at the depositio barbae? 41% of you correctly knew that Roman boys celebrated becoming men by shaving their first beard.

• A soldier shaved before his first battle (32.4%)

• A senator grew a beard to signal mourning (8.8%)

• A boy's first shave, celebrated as a coming-of-age rite (41.2%) 🏆

• A groom shaved the morning of his wedding (17.6%)

Pets | Courtesy of Upworthy

Four dogless guys sent a letter to their neighbor and the dog wrote back

A landlord said no pets but four roommates found a loophole with a tail.

Jack McCrossan and his three friends love dogs; the landlord of their new Bristol flat, not so much. Then they spotted the fix for the dog-shaped hole in their hearts in a window across the street. A black Sheprador just lying there looking back at them. The roommates decided the polite thing to do was write her owner a letter. In this story by Tod Perry, first shared on our sister site Upworthy, the note reads less like a request and more like a proposal: "If you want to walk past our balcony windows so we can see him/her, please do." They signed it "The boys from number 23."

A few days later, a reply arrived. It was not from the neighbor. It was from the dog. Stevie Ticks (amazing name!), two years and four months old, adopted from Cyprus, introduced herself as "very friendly and full of beans" and laid out her conditions like a contract attorney with paws. There was a price for her friendship, and she was specific about it.

Well-being

Eye rolls, sarcasm, and clapbacks feel good, but this works better

A therapist shares the three-step playbook for dealing with rude people without letting them hijack your whole day.

A rude person can ruin your day before you’ve finished your coffee. Some people have a talent for saying just the wrong thing with just the right infuriating tone and boom… It’s all you can think about.

Therapist Jeffrey Meltzer says the trick is not “be nicer.” It’s learning how not to hand over the keys to your nervous system in the first place. As Mark Wales reports, skip the passive-aggressive revenge tour and practice calm, assertive responses before you actually need them. It’s less about winning the interaction and more about refusing to let someone else’s bad behavior move into your brain rent-free.

Who’s a GOOD boy/girl?

Image of the Day has its own lane, but the pet pics keep arriving, and I am not made of stone. So every Friday, I’ll share one reader-submitted photo of a favorite pet. Want yours featured? Send it along.

On July 24, 1969, the Apollo 11 astronauts came home, streaking into Earth's atmosphere and splashing down in the Pacific Ocean, where the USS Hornet was waiting. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins had just pulled off the most-watched achievement in human history. Their reward? Quarantine.

Nobody knew for certain whether the Moon harbored microbes, so NASA took no chances. The crew scrubbed down, donned biological isolation garments, and were sealed inside a converted Airstream trailer aboard the ship. When President Nixon arrived to congratulate the most famous men on Earth, he did it through a window.

The three spent 21 days in isolation, celebrating humanity's giant leap from behind glass while doctors confirmed that no moon bugs had hitched a ride. And in one final flourish of glorious paperwork, the crew filed a customs declaration in Honolulu, dutifully listing their cargo: moon rock and moon dust. The Moon was officially cleared through customs, and the greatest voyage ever taken was complete. 

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💬 From the group text…

I am the sort to go outside in the rain, for a moment, to enjoy the feel of the water. It would never have occurred to me to don a wetsuit and dive into the local lake with a video camera.

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