How many pairs of shoes do you think you own? To this question, the 21 households that took part in the “Dare to change” operationlaunched by theEcological Transition Agency (Ademe) in January 2021, responded to an average of 16 pairs, for an estimated need of nine. But looking closer in their cupboards, we found an average of 31. Double, therefore.
This is just one example of the tendency we all have to underestimate the number of objects, equipment and clothes we have in our possession, says Marie Mourad, one of the sociologists who followed the operation. . For the first seven months, accompanied by home-organizers, these 21 households were invited to declutter their homes, a starting point for a deeper questioning of their consumption habits.
Where are we 18 months later, while Ademe is taking stock of the operation this Thursday? Marie Mourad answers questions from 20 minutes.
Are we unaware of the “disorder” that we have at home?
Yes, and the whole purpose of this operation was to trigger this awareness. Starting with the inventory of our possessions, which we rarely have the opportunity to do. However, the exercise is very instructive: bring together, in a pile and by category, all the objects you have at home. We often fall from the clouds, measuring the gap between what we believe we have and reality. Shoes are a very iconic example. One of the “Dare to Change” participants also realized that he had a hundred T-shirts. There are often also surprises when we count the phones we have in our drawers.
We can almost speak of the “sedimentation” of our objects. By removing them from our view, we end up forgetting them. At the same time, our consumption patterns are increasingly instantaneous, a trend that is increasing with the rise of online shopping. You end up buying things you don’t really need. See what we already have.
How does this increase our carbon footprint*?
Very often, when we think ” carbon footprint “, we think about what we consume. Fuel, electricity, our digital uses, our food… A significant proportion of this footprint is also linked to our objects and was generated, mainly, during the manufacturing phase. It’s not just greenhouse gas emissions, but also water consumption, resource extraction, pollution… In digital technology, for example, 78% of the environmental footprint of the sector is linked to the manufacture of our equipment (computers, smartphones, tablets, etc.). A major challenge is therefore to renew them as infrequently as possible, which means having a very precise idea of what you already have.
But it goes beyond that. With “Dare to change”, we also wanted to raise awareness that keeping objects and clothes at home that you don’t use is a form of waste. In the back of our drawers, they will gradually become obsolete or outdated when they could have been useful to others if they had been circulated, and even contribute to reducing the need to manufacture new copies.
On average, at the end of seven months of support with a home designer, households had disposed of 31% of their objects, all categories combined, and 37% of their textiles (clothing and shoes)… These households have they continued to declutter?
Among them, 40% decluttered more, some applying, for example, the method developed with their home-organizer to new spaces. The garage, the garden shed, the job…. For another 30%, possessions remained stable. And for the remaining 30%, they have increased again. Never much though. None returned to the situation before the operation.
And then these re-encumbrances are not necessarily to be seen as failures. They are often linked to life trajectories. A birth or a move. There are also imposed objects, in particular gifts at the time of the end of the year celebrations. It is not easy to resist overconsumption during this period, nor to send the message to your family that you do not want gifts, even less new ones.
Be that as it may, the outcome of the operation remains very positive. The decluttering stage was only the front door, because “Dare to change” aimed above all to make participants think about other ways of consuming. However, everyone is today in this process of a more sober and responsible consumption and has adopted a whole series of reflexes which will allow them to avoid the superfluous and, at most, the purchase new.
What exactly are these reflexes?
We can set several rules. One of them is to give yourself a cooling-off period of 24 hours before confirming a purchase. Including when done online. This measure greatly appealed to the participants, and 85% say they still adopt it today.
Another is to get one object out of your house for every object you bring in. Just under half of households try to apply it. In addition, 70% now systematically look for a second-hand solution before buying new, and 55% for a rental or shared solution. For example, rediscovering the municipal library rather than buying new books… It’s a bit of all this that makes it possible to move towards more responsible consumption.
Don’t we complicate our lives all the same?
It’s actually more complex than buying new. It takes time, thought, not just to buy but also to get rid of what you no longer need. The idea, if we go to the end of the process, is to make sure to find them the best possible second life, not just to send them to recycling. This is also one of the brakes that the operation helps to remove: these second-hand networks are still too underdeveloped today. There are voids. Several participants tell us, for example, that they dream of having a “bricothèque” nearby that would allow them to rent tools they rarely use. Typically the drill, whose effective duration of use, for amateur use, is about ten minutes over its entire life.
Despite these difficulties and the time that must be devoted to them, these new modes of consumption bring in return more well-being. This is another key takeaway from this study: many participants point to the benefits of enjoying decluttered and more functional spaces, talk about physical and mental relief from weaning themselves from heavy use . The feeling of being more in tune with one’s values, quite simply, also often comes back.
*estimated at 9 tonnes of CO2 equivalent for an average French person