Wear-ing the environment away

Hello Everyone! Welcome back to my blog!

Last week, I wrote about the clothing waste that is produced during the Chinese New Year (CNY) season and introduced some of the more innovative strategies we can adopt to tackle this issue. I also mentioned about conducting a survey to find out more. Well, the results are in, so let’s take a look!

I had a total of 34 respondents for the survey and based on the results, it would seem that I lead quite a wasteful lifestyle amongst my friends and peers 😔. The majority (76.5%) of the respondents only bought 1-2 new outfits during CNY and a small handful (14.7%) do not buy new clothes at all! When asked about how often they would wear these clothes after CNY, the most popular response was ‘A few times’ (35.3%), followed by ‘Regularly’ (26.5%) and ‘Rarely’ (20.6%).  Clearly, I am way more wasteful than more of my friends and peers, having bought around 3-4 outfits on average and rarely wearing them after CNY. However, the results still do not paint a pretty picture — seeing that the majority do not wear these new clothes regularly. We clearly have too many clothes to wear.

Next, I asked the respondents about the strategies to tackle the issue of clothing waste.

Source: Author

As you can see from the graph above, almost all of the respondents were aware of some of these strategies. One respondent also suggested using old clothes as towels/rags for cleaning purposes, which is especially suitable for Spring cleaning during CNY.

Source: Author

However, when we look at the next question, we can see that there is room for more action. A large majority of the respondents have tried donating or recycling their old clothes, but the other strategies like clothing swaps are upcycling are not as popular. This is not surprising as clothing donation drives are a dime a dozen, whereas it is rarer to come across organisations hosting clothing swaps or upcycling events. Awareness of the other strategies does not seem to be the issue here. Instead, I believe it is more of a mindset issue. Some may feel that these pre-owned clothes do not offer the same value as brand new clothes or are uncomfortable with wearing clothes that belonged to others.

An interesting comment I received stated that recycling/donating clothes should be the last resort as an excessive amount of unwanted clothes are collected in Singapore, with much of it being exported in the end. Indeed, as I had mentioned in my previous post, very little of Singapore’s textile waste is actually recycled. This shows that we should give these other strategies a shot as they can prolong the lifespans of our unwanted clothing and lower the demand for brand new clothing.

Lastly, I would like to mention that this was just a simple survey to get a gauge of what my friends and peers think, and is by no means representative. Most of the respondents fall within the age group of 18-25 so the responses here could be very different when compared to other age groups. Perhaps a deeper study that is more encompassing could be done in the future.

Till next time.

Jun Yu

5 Replies to “Wear-ing the environment away”

  1. Hi Jun Yu,

    I guess with surveys some people may unconsciously report that they are more environmentally friendly than reflects reality. I guess some people may choose the “better” option if they feel midway between two (𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩, 𝘐 𝘵𝘰𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐’𝘮 𝘥𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨)

    It’s interesting that multiple people wrote in for Carousell. The basic principle of selling your clothes and buying second hand isn’t that different from thrifting, I wonder what makes people see it as a distinct option?

    1. Hi Ee Kin,
      Indeed, I do feel that this form of personal bias is quite common. Most respondents are more likely to understate when it comes to negative traits and overstate when it comes to positive traits. As for what you mentioned about Carousell, I find that to be interesting as well. I believe Carousell is more well known seeing that it is a large platform and can be linked to social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter which helps increase its online presence. Perhaps a way to popularise the other strategies could be through modelling after Carousell by creating a centralised online platform with high social media presence.

  2. Hi Jun Yu,

    Really digging how your blog is turning out. Have you thought about taking it a step further and assessing societal willingness to change behaviours around celebrations to make them more sustainable ? I was thinking how interesting it might be to explore differences among generations. Professions too. Like, do ppl who are ethnically Chinese but work in the environmental (or sustainability) sector exhibit less consumerism around CNY than ppl in other professions ? Similarly, are BES students any different from other NUS students in this regard ?

    These Qs are so interesting that they might even be translatable into a UROPES or even FYP.

    jc

    1. Hi Dr Coleman,
      That’s a great suggestion and I will keep that in mind for my future blog posts! Indeed, there are so many factors that might affect one’s view of celebrations that could be explored. Something that I was wondering about as well was the differences between one’s views of their own festivals vs. those of others. Would there be a strong personal bias towards the festivals they celebrate? Would they feel that the festivals not celebrated by themselves are less sustainable/more harmful to the environment? Maybe it’s time for another survey… 😅

      -Jun Yu

  3. Ooh – good one. One that speaks to deeper issues about human nature. Like maybe tribalism and the tendency to rationalise our decisions & (mis)behaviours by saying that other ppl are doing something worse.

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