Increasing Consumer Participation in Textile Disposal Practices: Implications Derived from an Extended Theory of Planned Behaviour on Four Types of Post- Consumer Textile Disposal

Consumers decide when, where and how they dispose of their textiles and therefore determine their lifespan, destination and potential of textiles. An extended Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) that includes personal norm regarding textile recycling; industry awareness regarding the negative issues surrounding the textile industry; and knowledge of textile recycling has been used to explore the drivers of four consumer textile disposal intention categories: incentive and non-incentive-based textile disposal, extending the lifespan of textiles and binning unwanted textiles between household waste. The online survey (n = 491) showed that there is a gap between knowledge on the disposal method, previous behaviour and intention. In addition, it showed that subjective norm, personal norm and industry awareness all have a positive influence on the intention to dispose without incentive, while personal norm and industry awareness have a negative influence on the intention to bin unwanted textiles between household waste. The variables are insignificant predictors of the intention to dispose of textiles in exchange for an incentive and the intention to extend the lifespan of textiles. Besides, the incentive-based textile disposal has the lowest intention score, indicating that current incentives, such as a 10% discount on a subsequent purchase, do not sufficiently stimulate consumers to bring back their unwanted textiles. Based on the findings, some suggestions are made to the textile industry, government organizations and policymakers to strengthen their promotional campaigns and textile disposal methods. Contrary to previous research results, knowledge of textile recycling is not a significant predictor of consumer textile disposal intention. In addition, the results show that perceived behavioral control, one of the original TPB variables, is not a significant predictor of any of the behavioral intentions. This suggests that perceived behavioral control could be excluded from the TPB model in research on textile disposal behaviour.

Keywords: Textile disposal; Textile recycling; Textile waste; Theory of planned behaviour; Consumer behaviour; Recycling intention; Disposal intention; Quantitative research

Abbreviations: TPB: Theory of Planned Behaviour