Purpose -Most students report giving little thought to their consumption and waste, and when confronted with issues of sustainability still find them either distant and impersonal or overwhelming. One area that has been relatively unexplored is the concept of a self-audit and self-reflection in the development of intrinsic motivation for living sustainably. The aim of this paper is to describe the results of a case study that addresses this issue. Design/methodology/approach -As part of an integrated course, Introduction to Sustainable Design, undergraduate students participate in the creation and use of a personal Resource Consumption and Waste Audit that makes tangible their resource consumption and waste generation and that forms the basis for self-reflection throughout the course. The instructions to the students for the three-day audit are provided along with the results as self-reported by the students. Findings -Students generally express surprise and dismay at their levels of consumption and waste, and state that they are motivated to change behaviors. Many call the audit "life-changing" and add that everyone should do a similar audit if our society is to become more sustainable. Originality/value -The audit provides a novel, simple and cost-effective way for students to assess their own resource consumption and waste generation, and it lays the groundwork for behavioral change based on self-reflection around these issues. It has the additional advantages of requiring no special technology, being adaptable to different courses and majors, and providing a basis for development of quantitative and longitudinal studies.
Historically, textile production used local resources that were sustainably harvested and processed. The post-World War II strategy of planned obsolescence put an end to long-term use, repair and reuse of textiles. Today, the textile industry must assume a prominent role in the sustainability movement and find ways to stop its enormous generation of waste and pollution. This paper proposes a fresh examination of the age-old tradition of bricolage, or making creative use of whatever materials are at hand, as one way of reducing the volume of global textile waste. It uses a project initiated in 2008, called Bags Across the Globe (BAG), as a case study in 21 st century bricolage as well as a unique new pedagogical approach to textile and fashion design at the university level. BAG is a global collaborative project whose goals are to raise awareness of the environmental damage caused by plastic shopping bags, promote the use of cloth shopping bags, divert textile waste from landfills through its creative repurposing as shopping bags, and serve as a seed project for similar endeavours. It is time for the textile and fashion industry to adopt bricolage as part of a new and sustainable business model.
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