Want Not, Waste Not: Preliminary findings
Author: Anna Schytte Sigaard
Summary
This project note presents preliminary findings from a PhD project looking into textile waste from Norwegian households. 28 households collected textiles that they would have otherwise discarded for a period of six months. The textiles were collected by the PhD candidate during visits to the households where qualitative interviews were carried out. Then, all textiles were registered along with information from the interviews. The findings indicate that most of the discarded textiles are clothes and shoes. However, when broken down into textile categories, household textiles represent the largest group of discarded textiles. In addition, findings show that about one third of the collected textiles were in a very good condition, either like new or with only minor changes. The fiber content of the textiles corresponded with the preliminary findings from work package 2 in Wasted Textiles, as there was an equal distribution between 100% synthetic textiles, 100% non-synthetic textiles and textiles containing a mix of these. It was also found that the largest group of users were adult women, especially when looking at number of textiles discarded. If weight was applied instead, the difference between the genders evened out more. As these findings are preliminary, it is too early to provide any hard conclusions. Instead, the project note is meant to grant insights into the kind of data that will eventually be available and shared with the project group.