Reuse/Recycling

If consumption is understood as a process of selecting, purchasing, using, maintaining, and disposing of goods and services, then it might be noted that consumption studies have been largely biased toward exploring the front end of consumption. Existing studies have generated a wealth of insights regarding the ways in which goods are acquired, appropriated, and appreciated, but it is also important to understand the ways in which goods are cast out, abandoned, and disposed of. Reuse and recycling are therefore instructive concepts for the study of consumer culture insofar as they represent two possible strategies for dealing with the discards and afterward of consumption. Understandings of reuse [Page 1224]and recycling are also useful insofar as they allow for consideration of the environmental impacts of consumption and the relationship between consumption and waste. While reuse and recycling are related processes, they have subtle differences that call for or generate different understandings of consumption and the social life of things.

Reuse is what happens once goods have been through the first cycle of consumption, reached the point of disposal, and entered a second (and third, and forth, and so on) cycle rather than being sent to the landfill or “wasted.” An important form of reuse is secondhand consumption, which involves a range of consumer practices and takes place in a range of social spaces including (but not limited to) charity shops, retro-retailers, flea markets, swap meets, car trunk sales, and eBay. Unlike a lot of first-cycle consumption, it occupies a mundane location in everyday life insofar as it typically involves the exchange of ordinary goods in ordinary locations. Nevertheless, it is an interesting topic that requires completely different understanding of consumption and exchange. For example, in first-cycle consumption, money serves to abstract the goods and services being exchanged from the individuals undertaking the transaction just as prices provide an external measure of the item's value. By contrast, the second cycle of consumption is haunted by the first insofar as an item is likely to carry traces of its previous use (miles on a car, wear and tear on clothing, scribbling in the margins of a book), meaning that the exchange—and more importantly, the value—needs to be mediated by the individuals involved (for example, haggling and bartering over price or part's exchanging). Similarly, the symbolic meaning of goods exchanged and, indeed, the meaning accorded to the practice of secondhand consumption needs to be mediated in ways that are different from the first cycle of consumption. Here, it is important to note that secondhand consumption is a heterogeneous activity. For example, secondhand consumption can work to display highbrow tastes (in the case of purchasing antique furniture in place of an item from Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd [IKEA] home furnishings store) or reflect individuality in the face of the alleged homogenizing effects of mass consumption (in the case of buying a vintage leisure jacket instead of shopping at the Gap). However, it can also work to capture economic value through the thrill and skill of getting a bargain, but doing so out of economic necessity is a very different thing from doing so as a leisure activity. Indeed, secondhand consumption is very often practiced as a leisure activity that supplements first-cycle consumption insofar as it provides opportunities to pick up one-offs and unusual gifts while enjoying alternative economic spaces and subverting the ordinary relations of exchange.

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