Professor Laurence Godin, accompanied by two Université Laval students, Oumayma Aghzere and Amélie Zarir, explored the challenges of consuming second-hand objects. Discover the summary of their work.
Summary
In an era of climate change and environmental crisis, it is urgent to make the transition to more sustainable consumption patterns. Reducing the impact of household consumption is one of the measures to be taken. With this in mind, this project looked at how circular economy principles are integrated into everyday life, and how objects fall into disuse, circulate and are reappropriated by households. To this end, some twenty research interviews and several participant observation sessions were conducted to understand what drives consumers to give away or sell their possessions, or to acquire used objects.
Three main conclusions emerge. The first is that buying, selling, finding or donating used objects requires a great deal of resources, including time, skills and appropriate transportation. For this reason, as things stand, giving everyday objects a second life is more of a hobby or passion than a large-scale practice. The consumption of second-hand objects also tends to contravene the dominant norms associated with consumer goods, and can create friction between members of a household, for example. Getting rid of obsolete objects, however, is perceived as being much simpler, for example by selling online or donating to charity. The second conclusion concerns the central role played by social networks – particularly Facebook – for all the players involved, notably via classified ads (Marketplace) or for communications from groups active around these issues. The algorithm that determines the visibility of publications plays a fundamental role in the circulation of objects between households and, from this point of view, can either promote or seriously hinder it.
Finally, it became clear that the infrastructure in place to enable consumers to purchase and dispose of used goods is inadequate. The issues here are not so much on the consumers’ side as on the organizations’. While donations to community organizations work well for consumers, the situation is very different for the organizations themselves, who work with limited resources and are faced with large volumes of material to manage, not all of it suitable for sale or of good quality. In order to facilitate the circulation of second-hand objects, it is essential to develop infrastructures that work well both at the moment of acquisition and at the moment of disposal – an essential condition if this form of consumption is to become widespread.
