Excessive . . . but not wasteful? Youth cultures of everyday waste (avoidance)

Abstract

This article contributes to ongoing debates around the cultural production of waste by arguing for a clearer distinction between concepts of ‘waste’ and ‘excess’ and by suggesting the benefits of this distinction for tackling the perceived consumer cultural waste ‘problem’. Drawing on recent qualitative research with UK adolescents, I consider how a range of (youth/consumer) cultural drivers, social norms and moral imperatives shape young people’s everyday material consumption practices in ways that reflect (and produce) varied ways of (de/re-)valuing no-longer-wanted possessions. By exploring the cultural projects within which the young participants and their material possessions were engaged, and by identifying their aims in employing specific keeping and ridding practices, noteworthy differences between ‘waste’ and ‘excess’ materialise. I suggest that the drivers of the ‘excesses’ identified – characterised here in terms of ‘outgrowings’ and ‘hedging’ – highlight a set of distinctly cultural challenges to be met if the slippage of materials from ‘excess’ into ‘waste’ is to be averted. I contend that acknowledging these challenges, and these conceptual distinctions, may prove beneficial in attempts to address some of the societal challenges (e.g. material novelty as a driver of social status) related to the production of waste.

Ambivalent storage, multi-scalar generosity, and challenges of/for everyday consumption

“…In this paper we have sought to interrogate the sustainability potential of everyday household storage in order to challenge the assumption that clutter equals waste. By taking as our point of departure growing interest in spatially interconnected, multi-scalar 'landscapes of care' (Milligan & Wiles, 2010), in which the relations between human and non-human intersect in moments of 'caring-with' (Power, 2019), we have shown how mundane acts of storage are used to choreograph significant emotional and care-ful(l) connections which keep a range of material things in use and prevent a 'slide into waste' (Collins, 2020).…”

“…Intrinsic to storage is a material intensity -a concentration of 'stuff' which hints at a notion of excess antithetical to discourses of sustainable consumption (cf. Collins, 2020), where items stored are for storing or not (c.f. Gregson and Beale (2004, p. 690) work on stored clothing 'for wearing or not'; also Banim & Guy., 2001).…”

Practising fashion and wardrobe studies: A geographical reframing?

“…In recent geographical research explicitly focusing on the material qualities of garments, Stanes denotes the active use phase as "clothes-in-process" (2019, p. 224), acknowledging the multiple material, temporal, spatial, and behavioural moments that occur while wearing items daily and across their lifespan. Relatedly, another geographer Collins (2019Collins ( , 2020 examined everyday material consumption of clothing from both a practice theoretical and a geographical scale, exploring everyday clothing consumption, divestment, and care practices, socio-cultural practices, and geographies of responsibility. Notably, these studies focused on only one segment of user practices, i.e., youths (aged 16-34).…”