Fashion has been called the second most polluting industry in the world. That's with the use of water in growing cotton, the chemicals used to dye fabric, and the amount of clothes going into landfills all contributing to the sector's carbon footprint. In France, a video last year that showed Burberry burning millions of dollars' worth of unsold stock shocked the country. Now a new law aims to do something about fashion waste.  Elena Casas reports from Paris.

Gaelle Constantini is a Paris fashion designer who aims to make perennially stylish clothes customers will buy and wear. The fabric she uses is recycled and would otherwise have ended up in the bin - including used sheets from the Paris Ritz Hotel, and old curtains from the French Senate.

GAELLE CONSTANTINI FASHION DESIGNER "Fashion produces enormous amounts of waste, from throwing out the things we don't wear any more, but also from the production of fabric, the dyeing, the growing of cotton, it's all very polluting, so I just thought, let's use fabric that already exists, and that way we can reduce the amount of waste textiles on the planet."

Gaelle doesn't recycle clothes from many fashion brands - she says the fabric from high-street stores is too poor quality.  Upmarket fashion names often prefer to destroy unsold stock than recycle it to protect the exclusivity of their brand.

ELENA CASAS PARIS "The summer sales are in full swing in France - according to a survey last year, 56% of fashion retailers said they got rid of all unsold stock through discounting, but 13% admitted to destroying at least some of it. Under a new law, burning or throwing away unsold clothes would be illegal by 2021."

The government is determined to make designer names change their ways.

BRUNE POIRSON FRENCH MINISTER FOR ECOLOGY "In Parliament, we will debate this and come up with sanctions, or fines, that are heavy enough to stop this destruction. The aim at the end of the day is to make sure the things they don't manage to sell are given to people who need them."

The new law doesn't just apply to clothes - it would also ban throwing away unsold household goods and appliances, and aims to force manufacturers to make products that are easy to repair and last longer. This workshop offers a repair service for all sorts of household goods.

MARION BOCAHUT LA RECYCLERIE WORKSHOP "We're really trying to repair everything we can so we don't throw things away, so that could be toasters, hairdryers, vacuum cleaners, which often only need dusting, or a small piece changing when people were going to throw them out."

The new law aims to force manufacturers to pay the costs of transporting and treating their unwanted goods and encourage consumers to reuse, repair and recycle, instead of shopping. Elena Casas, CGTN, Paris.