AN ARCHIVE OF POST-CONSUMER CLOTHING
ABOUT THE PROJECT:
This project documents and reflects on the art/archaeological process of unpacking the contents of a 1,000 LB bale of randomly assorted post-consumer clothing from Goodwill. By approaching the bale as an archive, I investigate how the material dimensions of the bale (as a unit as well as the composite parts) relate to broader processes of discard and waste, where garments that once shared an intimate relationship to our bodies and daily lives, are then obscured by a matrix of waste management. What does it mean for clothing to be waste? Where did it come from and what is its trajectory? What is it made of? What condition is it in? And how do these components fit into our intimate daily interactions with, and subsequent discard of, clothing? How might this reflect more broadly on human-thing relationships in general?
A Bit of BACKGROUND:
According to the Council for Textile Recycling (CTR 2017) only about 10 to 20 percent of all goods donated to charitable organizations are sold in second hand stores (such as Goodwill). The remaining items, approximately 80 percent of items received, are sold in bulk either to international second-hand markets (via textile sorting facilities within the United States), or textile recycling facilities where textiles are cut into wiping rags, or shredded into post-consumer fibers (CTR 2017). Depending on their quality, these fibers are used for yarn, insulation, or automotive carpeting. About 5 percent of all donated clothing end up in landfills (CTR 2017). The Council for Textile Recycling also estimates that the clothing discard process is highly efficient, moving from receiving and sorting donations to bulk resale, repurposing, or landfill, in about 30 to 60 days. There are however no available statistics relating to what the clothing items actually are—the type, quality, or materials of clothing received and processed and how the life of a garment is related to material experience.
For the “Unpacking the Bale” project, I use an archaeological approach to examine the material dimensions of discarded garments, meaning, I am looking at the types of clothing, their material make-up (what percentage cotton, rayon, polyester etc.), where the label says they were made, their physical condition, and patterns of use-wear. I am intersecting these garments at the point after they have been donated to Goodwill but are either overflow from excess donations, not of high enough quality to resell, or have been taking up space in the thrift-store for too long and are on their way to being sold en-mass to textile sorting facilities. In preparation for their sale and departure from Goodwill, these clothes get compressed into approximately one-ton bales that are, as described above, sold for further reuse, or recycling. Using an archaeological approach to studying contemporary discarded clothing and foregrounding the material, offers a counterpoint to anthropological and consumer behavior research that tend to privilege the narrative of the wearer over the story that might emerge through examining the materiality of the garment itself.
Post-consumer clothing in the social sciences has mostly been examined from economic, historical, and cross-cultural perspectives that emphasize fashion and global flows of exchange as shown in the collection of essays in Old Clothes, New Looks: Second Hand Fashion edited by Palmer and Clark (2005). Hansen's (2000) pioneering research on second hand markets in Zambia addresses the influence of dumping used goods from developed countries on the developing world. Hansen also addresses the ways material qualities of clothing are often re-appropriated to match cultural needs. Because there was little primary research available when Hansen began her study, her early background research relied on newspaper reports surrounding second-hand clothing economies as well as personal experience and interviews used to piece together the history of the network of exchange and re-use. Continuing the line of research on international clothing recycling networks and practices, Norris (2004, 2010, 2012) focuses on textile recycling processes in India. Norris' work includes tracing the material transformations that occur throughout recycling in relation to value and meaning (Norris 2012), as well as the intimate and relatively formal processes of discarding clothing in upper and middle class Indian households (Norris 2004). Norris connects the dynamic life of garments to materiality and personhood describing how meaning is an emergent process that is mutually informed by garment and wearer. This relationship becomes apparent in the shedding of identity, or “skins,” that occurs when important clothing is discarded (Norris 2004).
Consumer behavior studies within the past decade, have also shifted focus toward clothing disposition with the aim to understand why and how people dispose of clothing. Much of the consumer behavior studies however, emphasize perceptions of sustainability in relation to disposition, how people dispose of clothing rather than emphasizing the specific reasons why a particular garment is worthy of being disposed (Laitala 2017). In a synthesis of clothing disposal studies over the past thirty years, Laitala (2017) observes, “Little is known about the variations of reasons behind clothing disposal, or the condition of the disposed clothing that is delivered either to a garbage collection or recycling” (Laitala 2017, 454). Many of the studies relay that disposition is most commonly related to the quality of the garment, it is worn out or torn, or related to psychological/symbolic reasons such as fashion, style, or how personal tastes have changed. According to Ha-Brookshire and Hodges (2009) in their study of donation behavior, the primary motive for donating clothing is to “make-room” for new clothes, often during seasonal cleaning. But, as Laitala (2017) points out, if more is known about the material condition of donated or disposed clothing, it can reveal a more textured account of people's relationship to clothing, the life-span of a garment, why it is being thrown out, and how use and wear in relation to the material qualities are bound up in the process, bringing together an understanding of clothing disposition that takes into account the materiality of the clothing.
Council for Textile Recycling. “Council for Textile Recycling” [Accessed: November 2017] http://www.weardonaterecycle.org.
Hansen, Karen Tranberg. 2000. Salaula: The World of Secondhand Clothing and Zambia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hawley, Jana M. “Digging for Diamonds: A Conceptual Framework for Understanding Reclaimed Textile Products.” Clothing and Textiles Research Journal. 24(3): 262 – 275.
Laitala, Kirsi. 2017. “Synthesis of Clothing Disposal Research.” International Journal of Consumer Studies
Norris, Lucy. 2004. “Shedding Skins: The Materiality of Divestment in India. Journal of Material Culture. 9 (1): 59 – 71.
Norris, Lucy. 2010. Recycling Indian Clothing: Global Contexts of Reuse and Value. Tracking Globalization. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Norris, Lucy. 2012. “Economies of Moral Fibre? Recycling Charity Clothes into Emergency Aid Blankets.” Journal of Material Culture 17(4): 389 – 404.
Palmer, Alexandra, and Hazel Clark. 2005. Old Clothes, New Looks: Second Hand Fashion. New York: Berg.