Are You Throwing Those Old Jeans in the Trash?
The United States Environmental Protection Agency estimates that only 15% of post-consumer textile waste is recovered each year, leaving a whopping 85% in landfills. This means that used textiles occupy nearly 5% of landfills overall. What can be done to help this problem? Karin M. Ekström and Nicklas Salomonson discuss the possibilities from a macromarketing perspective in their article, “Reuse and Recycling of Clothing and Textiles – A Network Approach” from Journal of Macromarketing.
The abstract:
The accelerated pace of consumption in the Western world has led to an increase in clothing and textiles disposed of in the garbage rather than being reused or recycled. The purpose of this article is to
increase understanding of how clothing and textile consumption can become more sustainable by demonstrating how members of a network view and deal with this problem. The study is based on meetings over one and a half years and on a survey. Different views on the problem as well as various solutions on how to increase reuse and recycling of clothing and textiles are presented, including means and challenges. A macromarketing perspective, involving different actors in society, is necessary in order to make consumption more sustainable and for finding long-term solutions. We argue that understanding symbolic consumption and the fashion system can contribute to the macromarketing study of societal development from a sustainable perspective.
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