Issues Surrounding Behavior towards Discarded Textiles and Garments in Ljubljana

Abstract

In recent years, post-consumer textile waste has become an important issue that attracts attention from activists, scientists and the media. The production and use of clothing has more than doubled in the last fifteen years due to declining costs, streamlined operations and rising consumption under the influence of fast fashion. According to research, the average European buys as much as 26 kg of textiles each year and discards 11 kg, while a very small share of post-consumer textile waste is recycled. This article presents the findings of a study on household textile waste in the capital of Ljubljana. The research showed that despite the significant declarative environmental awareness of people for sustainable behavior in the field of textile waste, the share of those decreases with exposure to actual behavior. However, there are few people who are completely uninterested in reducing textile waste, as most people are aware of the problem and pay more and more attention to it. The authors study the management of textile waste and its creation by the inhabitants of Ljubljana in the broader context of the influences of fast fashion, as well as the cultural specifics of the Slovenian society.

Revealing the Management of Municipal Textile Waste and Citizen Practices: The Case of Catalonia

“…These data highlight the lack of systems improving MTW capture and information helping citizens make a more appropriate decision when discarding MTW, although the Waste Directive 2018/851 sets that all Member States must ensure separate collection of textiles by 2025 (European Parliament and Council of the European Union, 2018). Moreover, previous studies have already investigated citizens' behaviour and management of MTW at a regional level and highlighted low collection of SMTW as a key factor influencing the environmental impacts of the textile industry (Laitala, 2014;Nencková et al, 2020;Polajnar Horvat and Šrimpf Vendramin, 2021). Analogously, this paper aims to shed light on MTW management practices by citizens in Catalonia.…”

Sustainable consumption and waste management

“…There are differences in people's knowledge and purchasing decisions related to lack of consistency in information. Targeted information dissemination, education, and other practical social impact methods can improve people's understanding and awareness, resulting in appropriate changes in practice [22][23]. Information provision and greater attention both from consumers and service providers could be a significant input, especially to food waste reduction in the public catering service sector [24].…”

Green Fashion Consumption – a Review of the Literature

“…Other studies demonstrated the importance of apparel sustainability knowledge and personal values (Su et al, 2019), green knowledge (Khare and Kautish, 2021), environmental awareness (Polajnar Horvat and Šrimpf Vendramin, 2021), and attitude towards sustainable textile products (Rausch and Kopplin, 2021) and awareness of eco-fashion (Cairns et al, 2022).…”