Texturing Waste: Attachment and Identity in EveryDay Consumption and Waste Practices

Abstract

Waste has often been a target of literature and policy promoting pro-environmental behaviour. However, little attention has been paid to how subjects interpret and construct waste in their daily lives. In this article we develop a synthesis of practice theory and psychosocial concepts of attachment and transitional space to explore how biographically patterned relationships and attachments to practice shape subjects' understandings of resource consumption and disposal. Deploying biographical interview data produced by the Energy Biographies Project, we illustrate how tangible, intersubjective and interdependent experiences rub up against cultural and behavioural norms, reshaping the meanings and strategies through which subjects interpret and manage waste.

Acceptance of energy transitions and policies: Public conceptualisations of energy as a need and basic right in the United Kingdom

“…it is not acceptable to be expected to share bath water anymore), but for some there was also a perception that perhaps things had gone too far. This was seen to manifest in perceived wasteful and taken-for-granted behaviours, echoing earlier research, which has found waste to be an important theme in public discourse around energy [5,35].…”

“It’s an Old House and That’s How It Works”: Living Sufficiently Well in Inefficient Homes

“…In the Gwilyms and Dreyers' narratives it is possible to see that thermal comfort practices develop through the households' relationships with their respective homes as 'inanimate actants' (Strengers, Nicholls & Maller, 2014), as both households discussed adapting and changing their expectations of thermal comfort to suit their respective homes' needs. The households' subsequent preference for lower temperatures, for example, was textured (Thomas, et al, 2017) both Gwilyms and Dreyers construct for themselves meaningful 'moral' identities that centre around a different understanding of efficiency to the technical definition set out at the beginning of the paper. The focus on 'doing things better, with least energy consumption' (Lorek & Spangenberg, 2017;7) evident in notions of technical efficiency, often involves a narrow focus on the thermal performance of a building, with the focus being on the energy required to maintain what is widely considered to be an optimal room temperature of 21 o C (Lorek & Spangenberg, 2017;Shove, 2018).…”

“…right vs. wrong; good vs. bad) render everyday consumption an expression of personal ethics and identity. What sets these moral or ethical evaluations apart from preference is that the former requires justification on the basis of the valued object's 'rightness' or 'goodness', whilst the latter is merely an assertion of subjective will (Groves et al, 2017).…”

Why Is Ownership an Issue? Exploring Factors That Determine Public Acceptance of Product-Service Systems

“…For more personal items, such as clothing and furnishings, the benefits of ownership of were more commonly appreciated, usually due to strong connections between these items and personal identity; for some participants this was also true of cars, connected as they often are to status and identity, as well as providing pleasure and enjoyment (cf. [47]). Whereas for more functional items (usually appliances and tools) the convenience of non-ownership were strongly appreciated:…”