03.06.08
If women are seen as most likely to recycle and they are also the primary care giver to their children then surely they are the best target audience for recycling campaigns – and it appears this is no secret.
Maria Muller and Anne Schienberg claim: “ any attempt to improve community urban services must logically take special care to consult women, who are almost certainly the ones most affected by changes or “improvements.”
As you trawl around the internet from fashion swap sites to the national ‘recycle now website’ you repeatedly come across pretty pink maps and purple colour schemes with smiling women on the front or female branding.
It is claimed that Women may have more opportunities to pass on the information to the future generation no matter what their sex and hope that their boys and girls alike grow up seeing recycling as a priority. This may not be a priority for them to teach, but if they set a decent example around the house when it comes to recycling then the children may follow in their footsteps.
But in this day and age is it always the woman who spends the most time with their children.
Househusband Tom Cowan says: “ We have two children and I take and collect them from school each day. I know its rare to get a househusband and admittedly it isn’t what I want to do but at the moment it makes sense as my wife earns more money then I do and with inflation on everything we couldn’t afford to live on my full time wages. That said though I’m not sure I’d really teach my children about recycling there are more important things for them to learn aren’t there? I do the recycling in the house cos like I say my wife works full time where as I only work weekends and some evenings. So I guess I set the example for the kids …but I don’t think I’l be giving them any recycling lessons”
Many recycling websites though aren’t just about recycling normal household waste there are also many itiaitives to try and save on clothes and accessoriy waste which again is aimed dominantly at a female audience.
Judy Berger managing director and founder of Whatsmineisyours.com a fashion swap site says “ The concept of my website when it was founded in 2004 was to reject the throwaway fashion culture. The idea that you can just buy something wear it once and throw it away. I suppose when I created the site I had myself in mind someone who loves fashion but didn’t want everything to end up in the bin that I no longer wanted. The site is purple with a female icon but there are sections for both men and women. That said you can see by the number of items on the site that there are clearly more women using the site then men. Also we get a lot of kids clothes so I’m not sure if it’s the mum or dad that puts the items on there. I think it would be fair to say though most of our promotions and articles about the site are in women’s fashion magazines such as Marie Claire and Elle.”
Fridey Cordingley from WRAP says :
