Reusing Textiles: on Material and Cultural Wear and Tear

Abstract

This article discusses contemporary practices in a Swedish context, connected to clothes and home textiles that are no longer in use, comparing them to reusing practices from the middle of the nineteenth century and onwards. The focus is on how the textiles are objects for different sorting processes in private homes as well as on a flea market, and people's ethical concerns connected to these processes. Until the early 1970s the skills of mending, altering and patching was common knowledge, to women at least. The reusing processes were about wear and tear considerations from a material point of view. Today there are many more clothing and home textiles items in circulation, which have to be taken care of. To handle and sort textiles seems, among other things, to be about coping with different feelings connected with guilt and bad conscience. To avoid these feelings people are seeking ways of letting the textiles circulate in order to be reused by others.

Management of sustainable fashion retail based on reuse– A struggle with multiple logics

“…The absence of coordination, and the decentralized organization strategy, has given individual actors the possibility to influence the development of the mall and how the logics are managed. The result is that the reuse process is decidedly non-standardized and dependent on the individual's judgment and decisions, a situation similar to those described by Hawley (2006), Botticello (2012), and Palmsköld (2015). However, the lack of key actors (e.g.…”

“…Next step is sorting, where waste and different fractions of clothes are separated simultaneously as the goods are categorized (Rogers and Tibben-Lembke 2001;Abraham 2011). Sorting and categorization of fashion items are complex aspects due to a large variety of materials and products and dependence on workers interpreting each item (Botticello 2012;Palmsköld 2015). A good connection between collection and sorting facilities improves the efficiency (Beamon and Fernandes 2004) in the same way as facilities with correct capacity and optimal location.…”

Impact of physical condition on disposal and end‐of‐life extension of clothing

“…The likelihood of avoiding trash disposal is influenced by the cost, time or effort required of product redistribution channels (Paden & Stell, 2005) which, for clothing, can include donation, selling, giving away, swapping or mending. As another form of garment extension, worn out clothing can be repurposed by cutting garments into pieces to be used as rags (Palmsköld, 2015); however, this method also requires time and effort of the consumer.…”

“…Sending clothing for repair may also be considered too expensive, especially in comparison to the cost of buying new (Goworek, Fisher, Cooper, Woodward, & Hiller, 2012; Laitala, Austgulen, & Klepp, 2014). Furthermore, Palmsköld (2015) argues that clothing today is of such low quality that it is unsuitable for the mending required to “sustain a long life” (p. 36). Perceived cost, time and skills needed for mending damaged clothing as well as the stigma associated with mending as traditional “women’s work” have also been barriers for repairing worn out garments (McLaren & McLauchlan, 2015).…”

Developing Interventions for Scaling Up UK Upcycling

“…It reduces solid waste [15,37,38]. In industries, upcycling-based businesses can be financially sustainable [39][40][41] and create new employment opportunities especially for disadvantaged people [42,43]. (Upcycling skills and techniques vary.…”