Fashion interest as a driver for consumer textile waste management: reuse, recycle or disposal

摘要

Past studies have considered the impact of fashion on consumer textile disposal behaviour, but have focused mainly on drivers of clothing waste. There is a lack of research that examines consumer attitudes towards fashion and their disposal methods. This study conducted an online survey of 410 people in Ontario, Canada with varying demographic characteristics to assess how they currently manage their textile waste including resell, swap, take-back, donation and disposal. Respondents were asked about their fashion interest and shopping frequency and were assigned a fashion index value. The fashion index value is not a means of grouping consumers but is instead a continuum to model interest in fashion, with one extreme representing fashion consumers and the other representing non-fashion consumers. Statistical analysis was then used to establish whether there is a link between textile waste behaviour and fashion index. The results indicate that consumers with a high fashion index (i.e. fashion consumers) and consumers with low fashion index (i.e. non-fashion consumers) manage their textile waste differently. While the majority of participants donate and dispose of unwanted clothes, fashion consumers are more interested and more likely to participate in alternative methods (e.g. resell, swap, and take back) for removing unwanted textiles. Although fashion consumers produce more textile waste than non-fashion consumers, textile consumption cannot be directly equated with textile waste since fashion consumers were found to have a lower disposal rate than non-fashion consumers (38 percent to 50 percent, respectively). The distinct disposal characteristics of fashion and non-fashion consumers (i.e. interest and willingness to participate in alternative channels) allows strategies to be tailored accordingly so that the amount of waste going to landfill can be reduced.