Facts about Materialistic Waste & Hoarding

My direct theme is to show waste not in an environmentally effecting way but as more of a pre-programmed human condition we have to waste through issues such as hoarding as I want to cover all of the extremes. 

Although I have found that in a way this does connect directly as a cause of environmental issues, as items kept in spaces like attics & garages not used should really be passed on and recycled so that less 'new' clothing is being bought and therefore increasing production and in a broad sense increasing pollution and other serious issues. These issues are often not really thought about or associated with clothes production as the emphasis in recent years has been more on transportation and litter pollution, bigger issues but really production of for example materialistic products are a core cause of waste especially in Western society. 

I reserached some interesting facts about materialistic waste as a context for my own final images, reiterating this idea that most of us don't fully understand the environmental impact our clothes have from production, materials that make them, transportation and washing, clothes make a huge dent.

While the message is starting to kick in and people are started to recycle clothing, it is thought that in america, 68lb of clothing and textiles is thrown away every year by every person; clothing represents about 4% of the municipal waste.

The materials used to make the clothes we buy also matter:

• Polyester, the most commonly used manufactured fiber, is made from petroleum in an energy-intensive process that emits volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and acid gases into the air. The process also uses a large amount of water for cooling.
• The manufacturing of nylon emits nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas with a carbon footprint 310 times that of carbon dioxide. 
• Rayon, derived from wood pulp, often relies on clearing old growth forests to make way for water-hungry eucalyptus trees, from which the fiber is derived.
• Cotton, found in most clothing, is the most pesticide-dependent crop in the world. It takes one-third of a pound of pesticides to make one t-shirt.

When manufacturing clothes, dyeing requires a huge amount of water, and its fixatives often flow into rivers and sewers. Also, all “easy care” and “permanent press” cottons are treated with formaldehyde.

It is also thought that every American only purchases an average of 10lb of recycled clothing per year as opposed to the 68lb thrown away!.

Due to my families quite obvious need to hoard & collect stuff I have decided to do some research on this theme as it relates to reasons my mum's mum, my mum and now me and my sister like to keep things that we believe possess good memories.  

 I came across a programme called 'Obsessive Compulsive Hoarder' which I found quite horrifying but intriguing at the same time, the way someone can believe by filling their home with things like broken umbrellas and old papers this is helping the environment.

In one way it is because if it is not recycled then it is helping to fill landfills which is not good however if recycled then it is good for the environment & the whole act of storing these products dangerously is quite deluded.

 This is the synopsis of the programme which sums up the story and the extreme situation:

In a pretty English village in the Surrey stockbroker belt lives the infamous Mr Wallace, whose hoarding habits have spread across a million pounds-worth of property that used to belong to his parents.

His detached bungalow, four-bedroom semi-detached house and separate double garage are all stuffed from floor to ceiling with newspapers and other household items.

Cutting Edge is given unique access into his intriguing home, where no one else has ever ventured. 

Mr Wallace is arguably the UK's most extreme hoarder and his house has become a death trap. It is so packed that he has to crawl over mountains of papers and magazines simply to move from room to room; it takes 40 minutes to get to his front door from the chair he eats and sleeps in.

The garden also acts as a dumping ground for tonnes of refuse so old that it is overgrown by foliage and trees. The council has tried to force Richard Wallace to clear his garden but he fought them to the Crown Court, representing himself and winning. 

A year on, things are coming to a head as the picturesque village is competing to win Britain in Bloom and Richard's home is once again the source of contention.

But with the hoarding now affecting his ability to function, Richard is entrenched to the point where his health is suffering, his safety is increasingly at risk and he is living in a physical and mental prison.

This time, the village's sense of community is truly tested and Richard faces the most significant challenge yet to his isolating way of life.

This way of life seems scary and claustrophobic and lonely to me as well as wasteful which obviously Mr Wallace has issues with however he cannot see how he is being wasteful in the whole way he lives. Again I feel in some way or another due to our materialistic society we all hoard in some form or another whether it's just simply not recycling unworn clothes in our cupboard or moving away from this theme keeping duplicates of accessories such as in the kitchen. 

Again I found some information in an article about women's cupboards and the waste that occurs:

In every woman's closet, 22 items she never wears - and the guilty complex that stops them clearing wardrobes out

Their wardrobes are bulging with dresses, tops, trousers and skirts.

And with so much to choose from, it’s hardly surprising that most women don’t actually get around to wearing everything they own.

In fact, the average woman has about 22 garments in her wardrobe that she will never wear but absolutely refuses to throw out, a survey shows.

Guilty complex: British women waste £1.6 billion on clothes they never wear - but the idea of wasting money stops them from clearing wardrobes out

Added up across the country, women spend more than £1.6billion on more than 500 million items of clothing they will never wear. Placed on a clothes rail, the great unworn would stretch 15,534 miles.

Millions of purchases that were a good idea in the shop – perhaps they were a bargain or a design worn by a celebrity – have turned out to be a waste, it seems.

Some may have been vanity purchases; little designer numbers selected as a reward for losing weight.

Rash buys are the main reason for the unworn clothing pile-up, according to 45 per cent of those questioned.

And despite these items taking up as much as 5 per cent of storage space, just one in eight women regularly clears out their wardrobes.

As many as one in nine say they would not dream of culling their wardrobe more than once every three years, while one in 50 delays the dreaded day for at least ten years.

Jeans are the most common item of unworn clothes, with 88 per cent saying they own at least one pair that they would never be seen out in.

One in five hoard up to six pairs of shoes that will never be worn. And almost everyone owns at least one top they ‘would not be seen dead in’.

More than half of women say that guilt over wasting money keeps them from throwing out unwanted clothes.

And 41 per cent insist they are planning to lose weight before getting some use out of their unworn outfits. Some 17 per cent are hoarding particular styles in the hope of a fashion revival.

Women from London are the nation’s top hoarders, with an average of more than £300 worth of clothes lying unworn in their wardrobes.

The Scots ranked second in terms of money wasted on items that never leave the wardrobe.

But before they start pointing the finger, men are not much better, it seems. They have 19 items of unworn clothing lurking in their wardrobes.

Impulse buys are just as apparent in their shopping baskets, with more than a third admitting their unworn items are largely sales items. 

Sue Leeson, a spokesman for shopping channel QVC – which carried out the survey – said: ‘Hoarding clothes is a form of nostalgia – but it’s impractical.'

‘Whilst sale shopping can be the downfall of many bank balances in January ... our informed shopping approach means you buy the right item in the first place.

‘Having a regular clear-out allows you to reassess your wardrobe and make sure that new purchases are thought out and calculated.

‘Finding out what you have already means that you can become a smart shopper and focus your wardrobe, buying key pieces that coordinate with each other properly.’

Throughout this article I have highlighted the main areas I was interested in, there are a couple of different types of waste present:
- Money waste- firstly wasted on impulse buying etc. and then not wanting to throw anything out to not waste money despite never wearing the clothes
- The idea of wasted space where these clothes are stored- in wardrobes, attics & garages.

The article moves on to use the word hoard as a form of waste through keeping items that will never be used this highlights are need for materialistic possessions.
I was particularly drawn to Sue Leeson's quote 'Hoarding clothes is a form of nostalgia – but it’s impractical.' as this really relates precisely to the concept I want to portray through my final images, this conflict between practicality and impracticality, in a way head vs. heart.