Tullia Jack
Associate senior lecturer
Laundry routine and resource consumption in Australia
Author
Summary, in English
Inconspicuous consumption, the habitual use of resources in daily routines, poses a challenge to sustainable consumption. For example, laundry is often the most environmentally demanding stage of clothing’s life cycle, consuming significant quantities of water, energy and chemicals. Laundry thus provides a prime example of inconspicuous consumption, from which to consider sustainability transitions. However, because of the mundane nature of washing clothes, it is sometimes over looked in sustainable fashion literature.
This paper presents the results of surveying 263 Australians about their jeans, laundry
habits and resource consumption, to build a picture of the expectations and actions surrounding the performance of cleanliness in everyday life. These surveys are triangulated against in-depth interviews with people who had not washed their jeans for three months revealing qualitative insights into influences of laundry practice. This paper documents how and why people perform laundry. An interesting finding is that people can not wash and still be socially acceptable, suggesting that cleanliness is a cultural construct, the pursuit of which increases the use of water, energy and chemicals, in conflict with sustainable consumption goals.
This paper presents the results of surveying 263 Australians about their jeans, laundry
habits and resource consumption, to build a picture of the expectations and actions surrounding the performance of cleanliness in everyday life. These surveys are triangulated against in-depth interviews with people who had not washed their jeans for three months revealing qualitative insights into influences of laundry practice. This paper documents how and why people perform laundry. An interesting finding is that people can not wash and still be socially acceptable, suggesting that cleanliness is a cultural construct, the pursuit of which increases the use of water, energy and chemicals, in conflict with sustainable consumption goals.
Publishing year
2013
Language
English
Pages
667-674
Publication/Series
International Journal of Consumer Studies
Volume
37
Issue
6
Full text
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Document type
Journal article
Publisher
Wiley-Blackwell
Topic
- Sociology (excluding Social Work, Social Psychology and Social Anthropology)
Keywords
- Australia
- cleanliness
- consumption
- dirt
- everyday
- inconspicuous consumption
- laundry
- practices
- routine
- sustainability.
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 1470-6431