Perceptions Towards Clothes with Recycled Content and Environmental Awareness: The Development of End Markets

Yukie Nakano    Centre for Design Research, Northumbria University, Sandyford Road, Squires Building, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK.

ABSTRACT

UK waste is growing steadily every year by 2-3 per cent, despite the fact that our government encourages us to recycle more. Due to a lack of landfill sites, we need to reduce our waste drastically. However, developing end markets for recycled materials is necessary for recycling to be successful, and the achievement of those markets depends on consumer demand for products.

This study has explored the public perception towards clothes with recycled content and was designed as a guide to clothing industries that are, or will be, dealing with recycled materials for their products. The public survey aimed to identify the potential market for clothes with recycled content, particularly those made from plastic (PET) bottles using a fleece jacket as an example.

The findings reveal that there is a contradiction between the public reaction towards products with recycled content and their awareness of environmental issues.

INTRODUCTION

Pressure to meet EU landfill regulations, a lack of available landfill sites and a growing concern for environmental hazards such as land, water contamination and air pollution associated with incineration and landfill sites have pressurised the UK Government to take action and raise the recycling rate. They indicated a target in Waste Strategy 2000 for England and Wales to recycle 25 per cent of household waste by 2005.1

However, in 2001/02, we created 28.8 million tonnes of municipal waste of which 22.3 million tonnes went into landfill. This was an increase of 2.4 per cent compared to 28.1 million tonnes in 2000/01 with 22.1 million tonnes going into landfill. Parallel to this development there was also a 1.2 per cent increase in recycling municipal waste from 12.3 per cent in 2000/01 to 13.5 per cent in 2001/02.2 This clearly shows that although the recycling rate has seen a rise, this is not sufficient to reduce the amount of waste going into landfill sites, as the total amount of waste produced has increased at a faster rate than recycling. If our pattern of consumption keeps to its current trend and we do not reduce our waste, it is clear that in the near future there will be no available landfill sites.3

One significant contributor to this situation is the plastic beverage bottle. It is derived from crude oil and the rapid growth of plastic bottle consumption combined with its short life cycle, results in its continuous entry as waste into landfill sites and incinerators.4 Looking at waste by weight, approximately 10-11 per cent of household wastes is plastic. 5 Around 1.6 per cent of this comprises plastic bottles. However, looking at waste by volume, plastic bottles would represent more than 5.4 per cent of the waste.6

In England recycling plastic started in the 1990s, since then the development of plastic recycling has been slow: approximately 3% (14,000 tonnes) in 2001.7

The main key barriers to the successful implementation of plastic bottle recycling have been identified as the lack of an efficient recycling infrastructure and an unstable market for collected materials.8 While improving the recycling infrastructure is a relatively straightforward task, which some local authorities may already have started addressing, developing end markets for recycled materials provide bigger challenges.

As Sutherland mentions, developing end markets for recycled material is vital for recycling to be able to grow.9 He also suggested that success of the market development relies on consumer demand for goods with recycled content.10

The RECOUP survey shows that approximately 10% of local authorities are not collecting plastic bottles because they have no confidence that there is a market for the collected materials.11 The recent WRAP study also pointed out that the plastic industry’s preconceptions towards recycled plastic materials have been hindering market development. The industry believes that recycled materials are of inferior quality to virgin materials and therefore hesitate to use them.12 Nevertheless, advances in recycling technology have made it possible to produce desirable quality goods from recycled plastic. In order to encourage industries to change the current practice it is necessary to convince them of the quality of recycled materials and to examine the public acceptance towards products with recycled content.

This study concentrates on clothing with recycled content, particularly those made from plastic (PET) bottles. In order to examine the public perception towards clothes with recycled content, a survey was carried out using a fleece jacket as an example. The fleece jacket is a product that can be made from recycled materials and it is a particularly good example of recycled clothes currently available in the market place as it shows that recycled materials are no longer inferior quality to virgin materials.

The survey aimed to identify the potential market for clothes with recycled content. This study and the resulting information was designed as a guide to clothing industries that are or will be dealing with recycled materials for their products. Shopping behaviour and environmental awareness, especially attitudes towards recycling were closely scrutinised. Analysis of previous consumer attitudes13 towards products marketed as environmentally friendly have contributed to the design and the analysis of the survey.

BRIEF HISTORY OF THE GREEN MOVEMENT IN THE CLOTHING INDUSTRY

In the early 1990s, we all experienced an increased interest in the green movement. The products e.g. biodegradable washing detergent, organic cotton and paper made from controlled forests, marketed as ‘environmentally friendly’ were sold everywhere. Yet, consumers were soon disappointed with lesser quality and the premium price of its products compared to conventional ones.

The clothing sector tells a similar tale. Esprit launched ‘Ecollection’ using mainly organic cotton with natural colours. This was initially an overwhelming success but soon consumers moved to more colourful clothes.14 Patagonia invented a fleece jacket made from recycled PET plastic bottles. The product was very successful and many companies followed suit and produced a fleece jacket made from plastic bottles. However both the jacket’s popularity and the high price gave rise to cheaper copies by non-high market clothing manufacturers that used virgin materials. As a result, there are plenty of low priced fleeces in the market place but they are not made from recycled materials.15

The green movement in the early 90s was a fashion. It arrived suddenly and disappeared the next season, just like other fashion trends. In order to sustain such a movement, it cannot be based on short-term trends, but needs to be linked to real long- term benefit. In the US, organic fibre (cotton) production followed the growth of the organic food movement.16 It seems the UK followed a similar trend. The recent food scares in the UK triggered many to search for safer food. People have started to look into where products come from and how they are produced. As a result there has been a rapid growth of organic and fair-trade food products and the certified organic cotton and fair trade textile/clothing businesses have recorded sales growth. For instance, the organic baby and toddler brand ‘Green Baby’ recorded more than £2 m in sales in 2003/04 and expects sales to go up to £5 m by 2006.17 The fashion designer Katharine Hamnett has also recognised the opportunity and is planning to launch an ethical fashion business in spring 2005.18

It seems that certified products are widely acknowledged and have become desirable products in recent years. The pressing question is whether products with recycled content could follow suit and see increased popularity. Both organic and recycled products have some benefits towards our environment. However, there are fundamental differences between these type of product. Organic fibre has added value compared to conventional cotton fibre. Neither pesticides that are considered toxic nor fertilisers are used during production.19 So that organic cotton offers assurance that the skin is not in direct contact with chemicals. This represents a significant benefit for those with a sensitive skin, e.g. babies.

Recycled fibre on the other hand does not offer immediate benefits or reassurance. On the contrary, recycled fibre is often associated with having been “used”, and is thought of as having as inferior quality to new materials. It is therefore necessary to investigate public perception towards clothes with recycled content in order to identify a potential market for clothes with recycled materials.

METHODOLOGY USED IN THE SURVEY

The public survey was carried out in the city centre of Newcastle-upon-Tyne over a period stretching from the 26th January to 3 rd February 2001. The particular location was considered the most suitable, following McCormack and Hill’s (1997) suggestions, Eldon Square was chosen as a location for the survey because it is seen as a busy retail centre and is easily accessible to a a cross-section of the population in a relatively short period of time.20 The data were collected from 95 respondents mainly aged between 19 and 60 years old. Particular attention was paid...