Laundry routine and resource consumption in Australia

Abstract

Inconspicuous consumption, the habitual use of resources in daily routines, poses a challenge to sustainable consumption. For example, laundry is often the most environmentally demanding stage of clothing's life cycle, consuming significant quantities of water, energy and chemicals. Laundry thus provides a prime example of inconspicuous consumption, from which to consider sustainability transitions. However, because of the mundane nature of washing clothes, it is sometimes over looked in sustainable fashion literature.This paper presents the results of surveying 263 Australians about their jeans, laundry habits and resource consumption, to build a picture of the expectations and actions surrounding the performance of cleanliness in everyday life. These surveys are triangulated against in-depth interviews with people who had not washed their jeans for three months revealing qualitative insights into influences of laundry practice. This paper documents how and why people perform laundry. An interesting finding is that people can not wash and still be socially acceptable, suggesting that cleanliness is a cultural construct, the pursuit of which increases the use of water, energy and chemicals, in conflict with sustainable consumption goals.

Young adult households and domestic sustainabilities

“…Ingrained body-centred norms are often deemed at 'taboo' and thus difficult to shift through environmental awareness-raising campaigns (Gram-Hanssen, 2007;Jack, 2013;Waitt, 2014).…”

Dirtying Linen: Re‐evaluating the sustainability of domestic laundry

“…Against this backdrop, Shove (2003) and Gram-Hanssen (2007), have conducted qualitative studies of laundry that illustrate its basis in routine domestic practices. Quantitative studies in a similar vein, and with a range of data, have explored laundry in particular depth in terms of washing machine operations and frequency of use prior to cleaning in Norway, the Netherlands, Spain, Greece and Australia (Arild et al, 2003;Jack, 2013;Laitala et al, 2012). Following Shove (2003), much has been made of the centrality or 'monoculture' of the washing machine as an environmental 'hot spot'.…”

Impact of water hardness on consumers' perception of laundry washing result in five European countries

“…(Rowe, 2006;Stamminger, 2011;Laitala et al, 2012;Jack, 2013;Kruschwitz et al, 2014). Furthermore, the data available in the literature do not provide satisfactory information as far as the impact of water hardness on consumer's perception of washing results is concerned.…”