France Will Pay for Your Clothing Repairs

Thanks to fast fashion and ultra-fast fashion brands, the ease of buying new clothes has surpassed that of repairing existing ones.

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But imagine if you could receive reimbursement for repairing your current clothes. Would that incentivize you to continue using your existing clothes instead of purchasing new ones?

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If you live in France, you have that option. Starting in November 2023, residents of France are eligible for a subsidy for resoling shoes or mending clothes.

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This measure will make it easier for them to mend their existing clothes and shoes instead of discarding them.

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France will pay you to get your clothes repaired

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The French government wants to support those who want to get their shoes and clothes repaired by providing them with a repair bonus. It has set aside a €154M fund for 2023-2028 that will allow residents to claim back €6-€25 on their cobblers and tailor bills.

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Refashion will run the initiative. The organization encourages repairing, reusing, and donating clothes and unwanted items.

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Every year, people in France discard 700,000 tonnes of clothing. More than half of it ends up in landfills and sits there for centuries. The situation is even worse in the U.S., where 14.5 million tons of textiles are landfilled or incinerated each year.

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The textile industry consumes a large amount of resources, such as water, cotton, leather, and wood. Every time we throw these clothes away, we waste all of these resources as well.

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If you have a broken heel, a rip in your trousers, or a missing button on your shirt, getting it fixed can increase the lifespan of the product and keep it out of landfills. If you're interested in repairing your own clothes, you can try out 6 types of visible mending.

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How can people get paid for their repairs?

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To make it easier for customers to avail the discounts on their repairs, Refashion is working directly with clothing repair businesses. Instead of consumers filling out forms to claim the subsidy, registered repair businesses can offer a discount to the consumers and get reimbursed by Refashion, which the government has contracted to manage the program.

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The program is slated to launch in November 2023 according to Refashion’s website. The aim of the program is to increase the pieces of textiles that are repaired per year in France by 35% by the end of 2028 and reduce the trash created by the textile industry.

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This is not the first time that France has taken such action. It has been at the forefront of passing and implementing environmentally friendly laws. The country's list of sustainable initiatives began in 2016 with the ban on supermarkets destroying unsold food.

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In 2020, an anti-waste law was introduced, prohibiting companies from destroying clothes, cosmetics, and other items.

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More recently, at the beginning of 2023, restaurants with more than 20 seats and fast-food outlets were prohibited from using disposable cutlery, plates, and cups for meals consumed on-site.

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The country has been creating some great templates for others to follow.