Changing understandings of waste reduction and avoidance in moralities of thrift: A comparison of Mass Observers’ narratives three decades apart

This paper explores shifting ideas of waste and recycling in narratives on thrift in the UK. Drawing on texts written by 33 respondents who answered two separate Mass Observation Directives on the subject of thrift in 1987 and 2016, it illuminates how waste reduction and avoidance is described by 'ordinary people'. The ways in which these practices are framed are dependent on the temporal context in which the narrative is set. Two key findings are presented. Firstly, respondents explain motivations for such practices differently, depending on whether their examples relate to what they were exposed to during their upbringing or to their own practices at present. Between these two contexts, the moralisation of thrift through practices of waste reduction and avoidance shifts from a focus on financial hardship towards consciousness/satisfaction, which indicates that current understandings of thrift combine values of ethical consumerism and hedonism. Secondly, responses to the 1987 and 2016 directives differ in terms of how thrift through waste reduction and avoidance of disposable items is accounted for. In 1987 writings, thrift was associated with efforts to find ways to use single-use multiple times, whereas in the 2016 writings, thrift is associated with a firm commitment to household waste recycling through municipal services. This indicates that since the 1980s, material and infrastructural changes have led to a shift of norms in dealing with single-use products and recycling. The findings point towards critical considerations of how moralities of thrift are employed in the context of material culture in the 21st century.

Everyday practices of waste reduction and avoidance, whether this concerns food, surplus and transitional household goods, service supplies or disposable items, constitute an integrated element of our everyday understandings of 'being thrifty'. In scholarly work, thrift and frugality have been associated with the war- and post-war period, with studies pointing to a romanticisation of bygone times of make do and mend (Hall and Holmes, 2017; Potter and Westall, 2013). As opposed to this, the contemporary focus of such practices is associated with efforts to consume less or differently, and to reduce adverse environmental impacts associated with the rapid rise in mass consumption from the 1960s onwards (Hellmann and Luedicke, 2018).

Yet, little attention has been paid to how everyday 'thrifty' practices of waste reduction and avoidance evolved in the context of the significant material and infrastructural changes that households underwent over the past few decades. This is despite the fact that waste reduction and avoidance constitute central principles to the idea of sustainable

development (UN General Assembly, 2015). Since after the Second World War, households have been exposed to two major developments in relation to waste management. Firstly, the rise of disposable materials and single-use packaging (Hawkins, 2018, 2020, Lucas, 2002) and secondly, the development of a municipal waste management system as a response to this emerging 'culture of disposal' (Fuentes et al., 2019; Vergheese et al., 2015).

Whilst it matters what kinds of goods and materials are made available and acquired in the first place, the environmental impact of these goods and materials increases or lessens through the ways in which they are used, maintained and disposed of. Crucially, scholars have noted that these practices are not limited to how materials and goods are acquired, appropriated, and appreciated, but also how they are divested, devalued and disposed of (Evans, 2019). Thus, beyond the choices we make when we acquire things, our material culture also entails the ways in which we engage with and separate and detach from things, such as through forms of gifting, donating, selling, repurposing and disposing (Clarke, 2000, Gregson and Beale, 2004; Gregson et al., 2007; Gregson,

2007; Hetherington, 2004; Holmes, 2018).

The research presented in this paper utilises narratives on thrift in order to identify nuances in changes of societal norms of waste reduction and avoidance as a moral commitment. It establishes how understandings of care for everyday household items through waste reduction and avoidance, as well as attribution of agency and responsibility for related actions, shifted between points in time which are connected by continuous changes to material culture around disposability and municipal waste governance practices. Contributing to existing studies on household practices and sustainable consumption, the observed shifts concern attributions of motivations for 'thrifty' waste reduction and avoidance practices and societal norms of how items have to be taken care of, so that they are not "wasted", as well as the ways in which this responsibility for waste reduction and avoidance is attributed.

Drawing on the responses of Mass Observers writings produced in the years 1987 and 2016, we explore understandings of household waste reduction and avoidance strategies and how they have changed, with the topic of 'thrift' providing the context for this exploration. These Mass Observation responses are historically embedded in the evolution of disposability and waste management as governmental concern, starting with the late 1960s, and narrated from a householder perspective, with a focus on everyday practices of thrift. As such, they allow us to compare how the respondents, all born between 1922 and 1957, look back on their families' thrift practices as they were growing up during and after the Second World War, and reflect on their own thrift practices at present, both in the 1980s and 2010s. We illustrate how they represent the socio-material entanglements of waste avoidance and reduction within UK households in the context of the evolution of both disposability and waste management over the 70-year period succeeding the Second World War. The observation that writers inextricably link practices of "being thrifty" with waste reduction and avoidance is notable in itself. However, the comparative data allowed us to observe differences between narratives written in the 1980s and 2010s as to how waste reduction and avoidance practices are represented, illustrated, exemplified and justified, leading us to conclude that understandings of 'thrifty practices' of household waste reduction and avoidance are context-dependent, and have changed over time.

We explore narratives from the perspective of social practices, building on existent work on the consumption of materials and goods through a focus on household practices (Little and Gorman-Murray, 2011; Miller, 1998; Warde, 2005). Taking a practice perspective on sustainable consumption means not only considering the types and amounts of goods and materials acquired, but also accounting for what happens with them during their lifetime, i.e., the ways in which we engage with them and how we dispose of them (Glover, 2016; Gregson, 2007; Lucas, 2002). This involves various forms of skills, planning, organisation and commitment and are often embedded within informal and formal infrastructures. The research presented in this paper contributes a unique historical comparative analysis to a small body of existing work that is concerned with how activities of reusing/repurposing goods and materials within the household or their passing on to other households are associated with values of frugality and thrift (Evans, 2011; Holmes, 2019) and may be labelled as 'recycling' (Evans, 2011; Gregson and Crewe, 2003; Gregson, 2007). It adds a novel perspective to existing literature by exploring accounts on 'thrifty' mundane household practices for waste reduction and avoidance in relation to household practice changes through both, the introduction of new materials to households (i.e. the rise of single-use and disposable products and packaging) and new infrastructures for households to engage with (i.e. changes of municipal waste management in the UK). Contextualising the change and continuation of understandings of thrift in relation to the emergence of disposable products and packaging and municipal waste management in the UK, this paper places the normativity of everyday practices within both a temporal and a policy perspective, illuminating the various ways in which associations of

everyday responsibility and care for household goods and materials shifted over the decades.

The remainder of this paper is structured as follows: the following section provides a historical overview of the cornerstones of the rise of disposable everyday products and packaging and the development of waste management in the UK from the post-war years until recently – the historical period of the research respondent's lifetime of experience that they draw upon in the writings analysed in study presented in this paper. The section thereafter explains the rationale to study the context of practices within private households to make a historical comparison of understandings of waste reduction and avoidance in moralities of thrift. The section on data and methodology explains the background behind the study and the analytical lens applied (critical discourse analysis) and provides details about the research respondents. This is followed by the analysis, which is split into two sections. In the first section, it is shown how respondents explain motivations for waste-reducing and -avoiding thrift practices differently, depending on whether they reflect on childhood recollections from the war and post-war era, or their own thrift practices in everyday life of the 1980s and 2010s. Remembering growing up during the war- and post-war years, respondents commonly refer to financial hardship as the motivation for thrift practices. However, writing about the practices they are engaged in at present (both in 1987 and 2016), these practices are reasoned as arising from consciousness and the satisfaction gained from the avoidance of various forms of waste. In the second analysis section, it is shown how the ways in which thrift practices relating to disposable products and packaging materials are accounted for differently by respondents, depending on the temporal context from which they are writing. Whilst in 1987 thrift was associated with efforts to find ways to use single-use multiple times, in the more recent narratives of 2016, these associations are replaced with a firm commitment to household waste recycling through municipal services. The concluding discussion summarises the findings and reflects on the ways in which moralities of thrift in dealing with everyday household items are adapted to changing material culture and infrastructures.

Frugality, thrift and household economics are, often romantically, associated with times of harsh rationing during WWII and the post-war years, when householders were urged to 'make do and mend' – repurposing and reusing items or simply 'doing without' (Hall and Holmes, 2017). This period of austerity is commonly thought of as preceding the 1960s rise of (Americanised) mass consumption, rapid (planned) obsolescence of items and an ethos of novelty, abundance and desire (Whiteley, 1987). While the 1960s are widely considered as the origin of a 'throwaway society' that has been subject to much critical academic debate (see: Hellmann and Luedicke, 2018), they also signify the move from old household-centred forms of waste reduction and avoidance based on scarcity and thrift, towards contemporary municipality services for waste management (Gandy, 1994).

Notably, scholarly work has challenged the assumption that the post-war expansion of manufacturing and rise of consumerism in a 'throwaway society' are the sole cause of the normalisation of disposability (Hellmann and Luedicke, 2018). It has been argued that a combination of economic, political and cultural changes during this period impacted the material flows within and between households and wider societal institutions and systems, leading to a decline of formerly common informal household practices of reuse, repurposing and recycling – and thus waste reduction and avoidance. For example, as Chappells and Shove (1999) discuss, the demise of the home fire caused by the introduction of central heating systems meant the burning of rubbish at home became a less viable option. Ideas of efficiency, cleanliness and replaceability, which go back to the 19th century, played a role in making single-use and packaging materials, and plastic overall "to matter in (...)

in everyday household practices" (Hawkins, 2018, 392). These wider societal changes led to an increase of the volume of waste and contributed to a growing heterogeneity and toxicity of material compositions (Strasser, 1999; Watson, 2012), which furthered the decline of home incineration.

As discussed in Hawkins' (2018, 2020) work on the evolution of plastic packaging, from the late 1960s onwards, the use of thermoplastics such as polyethylene and polystyrene expanded and rapidly became an integrated element of everyday household routines. Given the affordance of a broad spectrum of properties and wide-ranging packaging and wrapping possibilities, these materials played a critical role to shifting household practices, in particular in kitchens. Plastic became an integrated element in fulfilling responsibilities in various household practices, for example in relation to reducing food waste (Hawkins, 2020). The material's contribution to good home economics in relation to food safety, freshness and storage helped to establish practices that counteracted a 'culture of disposal' (Fuentes et al., 2019; Verghese et al., 2015). Households' relationship to plastics at the time was already complicated by it also having been considered to deepen an emerging 'waste crisis' (Hawkins, 2012), which was also contested by a counter reality of thrift and inventive reuse of single-use materials (Hawkins, 2018).

The UK 1960s and 70s can be regarded as "the period which saw the fullest embedding of what has been termed the disposal paradigm of waste management in industrialised countries" (Watson, 2012, 235). The dealing of household materials was understood as a linear flow of materials, from primary extraction through processing, manufacturing, exchange, use, and finally disposal through landfill or incineration. In this system, the household's involvement in the management of waste was simple and limited to the disposal through one bin (Watson, 2012). The formalisation of waste infrastructure for household waste recycling operated by local authorities was a slow process, although scattered municipal efforts for such schemes existed from the late 1960s onwards, laying the ground for a slowly emerging disposable material culture (Lucas, 2002). Early recycling attempts were led by a range of private and public companies, charities, environmental organisations and community groups (Chappells and Shove, 1999; Coggins et al., 1991). Throughout the 1970s, various 'drop off' recycling programmes for smaller materials were introduced, mostly notably the bottle banks drop-off scheme, which began in 1977 (Coggins et al., 1991; Watson, 2012). However, such initiatives remained marginal in relation to the overall amount of household waste occurring and were reserved for residents of certain geographical areas.

From the 1980s onwards, kerbside collection schemes were slowly established, for both general and recyclable materials. Initiatives varied widely, both in the ways they operated and in terms of the recyclables that were collected (Coggins et al., 1991; Craighill and Powell, 1996). Towards the late 1980s, environmental aspects moved more into the focus as a motivation for recycling. The introduction of the 1996 Landfill Tax marks a moment in these developments, as it made landfill less economically viable, however, still cheap in comparison to other waste management options (Bulkeley et al., 2005; Davoudi, 2000). However, by the mid-1990s, still only 5 % of UK household waste was recycled (Craighill and Powell, 1996), although targets became binding a few years later, with the EU 1999 Landfill Directive (Bulkeley et al., 2005) and the introduction of mandatory weight-based recycling targets in England (Jones and Tansey, 2014) that helped the country to move from landfill towards more recycling. Further contributing to this were programmes for waste minimisation, such as WRAP (a publicly funded not-for-profit "Waste and Resources Action Plan" organisation), which were introduced in subsequent years (Bulkeley et al., 2005). By 2000/01, the household recycling rate in England was 11 % and continued to rise, reaching 44 % by 2016/17 (Smith and Bolton, 2018). 2016 was also the year when half the Mass Observation narratives analysed for this study were written.

Households provide a key unit of analysis to the study of practices of consumption and, importantly, disposal. The household represents a site of continual flow of materials and relationships (Holmes, 2019). Studies have shown that activities of reusing, recycling and re-purposing occur as an integrated element of everyday practice in households and are bound up in wider practices of sociality and homemaking (Bulkeley and Gregson, 2009; Crabtree, 2011). While the reuse and repurposing of goods and materials might occur in rather routinised and passive ways (e.g. wearing clothes until they are disintegrating or keeping single-use food containers or boxes for storage), such activities can also be very active and conscious, for example through engaging in activities of repair and maintenance (Dant, 2005; Graham and Thrift, 2007). Research on contemporary thrift suggests that people engage in thrifty household practices for a variety of motivations, which include: necessity, a (perceived) financial need; personal values of caring for the family or the environment, normative ideas of how things should be done and the pleasure and satisfaction gained from taking care of things or adding value to them (Holmes, 2019). Other work on household consumption has focused on the disposal of goods and how people separate and detach themselves from things (Evans, 2019; Gregson, 2007; Hetherington, 2004), arguing that ridding of things, disposing and removing them from the household, also represents a form of relation and engagement with goods and materials (Hawkins, 2001), which involve various forms of skills, planning, organisation and commitment. More so, ridding does not necessarily mean that things go to waste – they might be gifted, donated or sold. Whilst they are removed from one household, they might enter another (Clarke, 2000; Evans, 2019; Gregson and Beale, 2004; Gregson et al., 2007; Gregson, 2007; Holmes, 2018).

Interwoven with these informal practices of household recycling practices are material changes in relation to everyday items used in households, as well as formal waste management systems, such as kerbside collections. From a householder perspective, these more formal systems of recycling also require dedicated sorting, preparing and storage arrangements within the home. For example, the sorting of paper and cardboard, and the cleaning of bottles and cans, as well as the negotiation, organisation and division of associated tasks between householders (Crabtree, 2011; Horne et al., 2011; Watson, 2012). As Hawkins (2001) notes, drop-off schemes and kerbside collection involve householders in activities that, although small, require conscious organisation and planning, establishing householders as 'waste managers'. Thus, the boundaries of 'recycling management' are shifting between public and private and impact the material practices of householders. In this study, we build on the wealth of work on disposal and consumption to explore how meanings of household waste have shifted over the past three decades, taking account of wider societal, economic and political developments.

The writings analysed in this paper were collected through Mass Observation Project (MOP) directives. The MOP is based at the University of Sussex and involves a panel of volunteers, who three times a year are invited to write about specific topics related to everyday life. Many of these volunteers have been corresponding with the directive over several years, such as the 33 Mass Observers who responded to a directive on thrift each in the years 1987 and 2016, allowing for the comparative empirical study presented in this paper to be possible. Given the nature of the Mass Observation directive, comparative studies are not unusual. In previous studies, researchers have conducted case studies of particular Mass Observers, collating the writing of the same individual about different topics (Hinton, 2010; Raisborough and Bharti, 2007), compared Mass Observers of different generations in their

responses to the same directive (May, 2018) or studied narratives on the same topic at two different points in time, but with different writers (Savage, 2007). This study stands out for its comparison of the same individuals writing on the same topic many years apart.

The comparative empirical study presented in this paper evolved from author Holmes commissioning a directive on “being thrifty” in 2016, as part of a 3-year project, whilst being aware that a similar directive had been commissioned in 1987. A total of 33 Mass Observers who completed the 1987 directive also contributed to the directive in 2016; enabling a comparison of contributions from the same respondents, spanning almost 3 decades.

Apart from an assigned personal identification number and some basic demographic data (e.g. age, gender, place of residence), not much background information is available on Mass Observers. While the panel in general is not nationally representative (i.e., skewed towards women and older people of middle class living in the South of England), this is even more so the case for the sample studied in this research. In fact, out of the sample of 33 Mass Observers, only three identify as men, which appears to be the result of women tending to be more constant and long-term committed in their contribution to the Project (Pollen, 2013). Demographic information obtained about the respondents is detailed in Table 1.

In order to identify the collectively shared understandings of waste reduction and avoidance inherent in these 66 writings about household thrift, a discourse-analytical approach studying individual writings as social text was applied. This was undertaken by author Ehgartner with subsequent findings discussed with author Holmes. It has to be emphasised that, although this analysis compares longitudinal changes in the writings of individuals, this was done to understand change and continuation of what is considered normal, desirable and permissible on a collective level in and for the socio-cultural context these narratives were written. To argue with Pollen (2013), Mass Observation contributions may have been accentuated as providing “little islands of singularity” (Highmore cited in Pollen, 2013, 222) rather than anything “typical”, however,

“writings from a single person (...) always speak about wider social experience in the context of everyday politics, reflections on history, public attitudes and beyond” (Pollen, 2013, 222–223).

This is true in particular in relation to Mass Observation contributions, which originate from volunteers writing with an awareness of producing a piece for a national archive on ‘everyday life in Britain’. Individual Mass Observers differ in their attitudes towards and experiences in relation to various topics they write about, such as the topic of thrift, as well as they differ in motivations and aims to portray “a ‘honourable’ representation of their lives” (Sheridan, 1993, 37). However, producing writings for an archive, they want to make themselves be understood by their readers and therefore draw on dispositions, schemata and associations shared by a public culture. Correspondents inevitably draw upon collectively shared codes, frames, vocabularies and classifications within an intersubjective cultural system, to communicate their personal experiences and to express their personal attitudes.

To enable the identification and analysis of these collectively shared codes, frames, vocabularies and classifications, a discourse analytical approach was applied, with coding conducted on respondents’ lines of reasoning, rather than around thematic categories (Ehgartner, 2021; Potter and Wetherell, 1987; Talja, 1999). Applying this methodological lens, understandings of waste reduction and avoidance were empirically observed in the context of writings about ‘thrift’. As others have discussed, thrift is a useful lens through which to explore environmental challenges. Holmes (2019) illuminates how thrifty practices are often entwined with motivations to be more environmentally sustainable, such as re-using surplus materials or finding other alternatives to disposal. Similarly, others have argued how thrift is a means of showing care and compassion both for others but also for the wider environment

(Evans, 2011; Miller, 1998).¹

In the Mass Observation narratives from both 1987 and 2016, thrift is associated with a wide range of practices beyond purchase decisions. This observation is consistent with scholarly work on thrift practices, which reveals that beyond spending of household finances carefully, thrift practices also involve conscience and enjoyment (Holmes, 2018). Writers describe thrift both through various practices (making, mending, transforming, and repurposing) and in relation to different types of goods and materials (food, everyday surplus and transitional household items, clothes, service supplies and household appliances use, as well as single-use and packaging materials), often with an emphasis put on the aim to extend the life of things. Respondents refer to examples of their own, but also family members’, spouses’, friends’, colleagues’ and neighbours’ thrift practices, judging these activities in various ways: sometimes with pride, smugness and admiration, other times with disapproval, disgust, pain and distress.

When writing about thrift as a financial necessity, both in 1987 and 2016 writings, correspondents mostly associate this with the past, drawing either from memories of activities they engaged in directly, or observations they made growing up, and being raised by parents of this era. The accounts of hardship provided by writers are often narrated with a sense of admiration, sometimes nostalgia, or also explicit dissociation. Regardless of how writers evaluate these activities in relation to their own practices as they write in 1987 and 2016, they always ground them in an explicit appreciation of the hardship people faced at that time and the skills and knowledge people applied, in order to be economical in everyday household practices. The following 2016 quote taken from 1930s-born female correspondent W853s is particularly explicit regarding this appreciation, locating ‘real thrift’ in WW2:

“For real thrift, of necessity, the serious practitioners of it where people like my parents, Aunts and Uncles and Grandparents who were real artists of thrift during WW2. Nothing went to waste. Vegetables grown in the garden (...). Every piece of wood saved (...).”

Throughout the narratives, financial hardship is associated with personal family-related and collective memories of the war and post-war years. Placing the origin of thrift practices in this historical context that respondents consider themselves having been part of, they distinguish this ‘past’ form of thrift from their personal circumstances and motivations as an adult the 1980s and 2010s. The notion of “real” thrift as being something from the past is often drawn upon to explain that one’s present life circumstances are very different. One might have adopted these habits and gained knowledge and skills for life, yet, in the present of 1987 and 2016, whilst acknowledged as valuable, they are deemed unnecessary. One such example is represented by the 1930s born female

Demographic details of the Mass Observation writers.

¹ All categories in this table are produced from source (Mass Observation Archive). The level of multiple deprivation (7 measures of deprivation: income; employment; health/disability; living environment; education; skills and training; barriers in housing; crime) is provided for the postcode data provided by the writers. A higher number means the writer lives in an area of high multiple deprivation, however, not every person in a highly deprived area will be deprived, or view themselves as deprived. It can also not be ruled out that writers have moved to a different address.

correspondent H260, who states in 1987:

"Turning old sheets 'sides to middle' is another saving habit. From old towels I make face cloths. Most of these habits stem from the war years when everything was in short supply or unobtainable."

Taking the argument a step further, in her 2016 writing, she argues that the hardship of those years forced people to adopt practices which the young generation of today cannot relate to:

"As a girl in the 1930's I saw people with such poverty that it would make you cry! (...) Not a thing was wasted. My own mother even boiled all the vegetable peelings to feed the rabbits, which were fattened up to feed us all. (...) We cut up our old clothes and kept them in long strips (...) to make our own rugs. (...). Could you imagine the youngsters of today doing these things?"

Writing about how she avoids food waste, she goes on to emphasise that, these days, her personal economic situation does not demand such practices, whilst pointing out that experiences and learning of the past make her continue to act according to the moral principles from back in the day. Feeding leftovers to the birds and composting as a form of waste avoidance is presented as an expression of conscience and care:

"Of course I don't do anything like those chores today. But I am still very careful not to waste much. All my leftover food feeds the birds and the peelings go on my compost heap." (H260, 2016).

Although economic hardship is explicitly located in the past and dissociated from today's reality of society and person life, memory serves as a reference point for inherited and internalised moral obligations, as well as for the appreciation of available knowledge and skills. This idea of a 'passing on' of morality and skills of thrift is common across narratives, when Mass Observers explain their own practices – whether they associate with or dissociate from the past. Correspondent

H1470, a 1950s born female, represents an example for the latter. Defining thrift in her writing from 2016, she reflects on how her grandparents' lived experience impacted her parents and how they passed both their values and skills on to her, first in an approving sense:

"My parents who were born in the early part of the previous century and lived through world war 2 as young adults, had various views of what is being thrifty. They grew up with the views of their Victorian raised parents who imposed their ideas on them. (...) I have grown up in a world of extreme frugality and thriftness, based on my grandparents and parents knowledge and actions. I practice a lot of what my relations did in many ways. I still save bags from old purchases. I make my own wrapping paper, labels and cards. I don't buy a lot of clothes or shoes, just mix and match my existing wardrobe."

Listing some examples of how she uses her creative skills to produce unique items, similar to respondent H260, she reflectively argues that she adopted these practices as a consequence of her upbringing. Further down in the narrative, she argues that becoming older, she made the conscious choice to dissociate from the 'original' money-saving approach to thrift. Still acknowledging that she engages in similar practices, she firmly insists on her motivations differing from those of her parents, and being motivated by a pursuit of pleasure.

"I did these activities above as a child/teenager, as it was imposed upon me by my parents, but I found an outlet of fun in doing art and learned to paint, draw and sculpt for my own pleasure in later years. Sometimes, the conditioning for daily thrift from relatives, that you wind up doing it automatically, in our sub-conscious. You reach a certain age of maturity and learn to pick and choose what you can keep in your heart, for being thrifty, and discard which seems a petty nuisance in frugality. When

others start referring to me as a tightwad, tightfisted or a miser, then it is a time to make your own rules on saving and thriftiness" (H1470, 2016)

Similarly to respondent H260, and usual in the analysed Mass Observer narratives from both 1987 and 2016, respondent H1470 argues that she does not engage in these practices out of necessity and clarifies that she shook off the hardship she experienced in her childhood. Located in the 'here and now' of 1987 and 2016, thrift and waste reduction and avoidance practices are first and foremost framed as knowledge and skills inherited from a past of hardship and integrated into practices that, as respondents argue, now afford conscience and enjoyment. Thrift practices are framed as enjoyable activities, which are engaged in for pleasure.

Household practices of dealing with disposable goods and single-use packaging are frequently brought up by Mass Observers across thrift narratives from both 1987 and 2016. However, what is considered thrift practice in relation to these items, differs considerably between the samples of both years. Interpretations shift from a critique of the rise of single-use and efforts to find ways to re-use single-use items multiple times in 1987, to committing to household waste recycling through municipal services in 2016.

In the 1987 narratives, respondents comment extensively on the amount of such goods and materials entering their household incidentally, either per post (e.g. through junk mail) or through the consumption of another good (e.g. carrier bags or various types of packaging). Many correspondents report on systems they put in place to 'process' (reuse, repurpose, recycle) surplus disposables in the household. Typical examples include the freezing of butter papers to later use them for greasing baking tins, the collection of envelopes or scraps of paper to use for future notetaking, or the keeping of single-use boxes as trays for food/meal storage or for children to play with. A number of Mass Observers also mention examples for how they reuse or repurpose gift wrapping, newspapers and carrier bags, amongst unusual examples such as one Mass Observer who describes how they use free CDs that come with advertisements to hang them in their garden to scare away birds. Home storage of excess items and materials, whether as an intermediate step before transporting items to central recycling facilities or just for the purpose of not wasting, is a recurring topic, often presented with a frustrated or cynical undertone:

"So many plastic carrier bags available (normally free) from supermarkets, it really is getting overwhelming. I have two bags of bags under the stairs, another bag of bags in the kitchen, two in the airing cupboard and I newly managed one on the back of the garden hut door – but my husband objected!" (G226, 1987)

As illustrated in the above quote, what stands out in the narratives from 1987, is the overload of disposables that enter households. Various respondents express a critique of changes in society, which they often support with comparisons of how things were different in previous generations, i.e., during and after the war. Some suggest better and more advanced recycling systems as a means to counteract these changes. The contribution by observer W1813 (female, born in 1950) represents an example for this. In her writing from 1987, she presents a rather detailed critique of Britain's development towards a 'throw away nation' and complains about the amount of waste resulting from packaging of something else that is purchased (boxes, tins, trays, carrier bags, bottles) or from involuntarily received direct mail, eventually suggesting recycling a possible fix to the problem.

"It would be fair enough to describe the British as a 'throw away' nation, following in the footsteps of our American cousins. If we look at our lives we can soon see that there is a tremendous amount of waste of resources (...). And in our own homes we have become accustomed to the disposable (...). Now life without the disposable paper roll in the kitchen, clingfilm for

wrapping sandwiches or leftover food, and foils to cover roasting poultry (...) is not contemplated. Waste is largely the prerogative of rich nations and acquisitive people, and in Britain we must take our share of criticism on this front. (...) Advertising leaflets and packaging are two more sources of waste. Everything we buy seems to come in boxes, cartons, bottles and tins, and even meat can't be sold without a polystyrene tray to support it, and all this ends up in our refuse bins. And then there is the endless stream of junk mail that flows through our letter boxes week in week out (...). Trees died for this, I often think to myself, but I really don't know what can be done about it. If only we would make more attempts to recycle waste."

While W1813 gives a particularly nuanced critique of society and material culture in the 1980s, she also hints at a possible solution: stronger commitments to better recycling systems. As discussed earlier, in the 1980s, ridding of disposables in ways that allow them to enter a recycling system posed challenges for householders who must store materials at home before dropping them off at specific sites (Watson, 2012, Coggins et al., 1991). These difficulties are expressed by various respondents; a quote of respondent P1009 (female, born in 1940) illustrates this, as she is voicing her frustration about the lack of systematic recycling management and easier ways of accessing existing systems.

"In the neighborhood we have bottle banks but they tend to be out to the town centre + you have to make a special effort to remember to take bottles to them. Locally we are collecting newspapers towards a building fund for our new church but the firm which collects them won't come unless we have at least a ton + storage is a problem (...)" (P1009, 1987)

Although stating confidence in and satisfaction with local bottle banks, respondent H1550 (female, born in 1925) similarly writes about seeing room for improvement with regards to recycling systems. She points out the lack of paper recycling facilities in her municipality:

"There are bottle banks at Bracknell tip as well as in the town centre. The latter very neat and unobtrusively placed, one each for brown, green and clear bottles – now that we are confident, they are a fixture we are glad to return bottles regularly. It would be helpful if someone could think up an economic way of collecting and recycling the masses of newsprint which has to be thrown away which would help the environment and be of value" (H1550, 1987).

In 1987, these three Mass Observers (W1813, P1009, H1550) employ considerations of consciousness, planning and care for household goods and materials that are designed as 'disposable'. Alongside of strategies of storing and re-use at home, bottle banks and charities provide the possibility for ridding of these things whilst being reassured that things are not 'wasted'. In relation to this, respondents express their wish for improved recycling systems.

Comparing their 1987 writings to those from 2016, it appears that their wishes were fulfilled, with each of them expressing contentment about their engagement with their recycling bins. W1813 details the different recycling bins they have. While mentioning the same materials as in their 1987 response, this is done in a rather positive, self-affirming and proud way, with plastic and polystyrene being singled out as the only type of material that does not find a new purpose through their actions:

"I am an avid recycler (...). We have three recycling bins provided by the council – one for garden waste, one for metals, plastic, paper, cardboard, card and glass and one for all the things that can't be recycled, mostly plastic, polystyrene and animal bones or carcasses (I throw most of these onto the garden where crows and magpies strip off anything they can find and what's left goes in the bin." (W1813, 2016)

Similarly, P1009 points out how they can, and happily do, recycle most of their disposable materials through the household bins, stating: "I recycle as much as I can. Our council will take most kinds of plastic (apart

from bags + black plastic) and bottles + card and paper" (P1009, 2016). Also H1550, who wished for better recycling in 1987, in 2016 delivers a proud account of their children's commitment to recycling in 2016, stating they have "four adult children and they are all recycling aware (...)". These statements from 2016 locate the households' function and responsibility in relation to recycling at the household's bins. The fate of a disposable item is determined by, firstly, the types of bins available/accessible to the household, and, secondly, the commitments that residents make in separating out disposables into these different bins. The ways in which disposables are embedded in these narratives indicate that the use of the recycling bin is a concept internalised and normalised as a strategy for waste avoidance.

As opposed to the 1987 focus on efforts to reuse, repurpose, collect and store such items at home and plan for their passing on to other places, in 2016 writings, respondents' focus is on the commitment to using the household recycling bins provided by municipalities for such items. Comparing the narratives of Mass Observer P1009, this becomes particularly explicit. As quoted above, in 1987, the respondent emphasised how their household, irrespective of the difficulties and inconveniences that come with recycling, is committed to recycling newspapers because the money they receive in exchange goes towards a church building fund. As she notes, "they pay about £15 a ton for it." (P1009, 1987). In 2016, the same respondent also emphasises her household's commitment to recycling and measures the value of recycling yet again through "price", but this time not in terms of the amount of money they receive (for a good cause), but for the amount they pay for a specially provided bin, arguing that they "have a compost bin too for vegetable peeling etc + also pay £40 a year for a special bin to take grass cuttings, dead flowers + other garden refuse" (P1009, 2016). Whilst being consistent in presenting her commitment to collecting materials for recycling and referring to its financial value, over the three decades between the two directives, this Mass Observer moved on from legitimizing the efforts of her commitment to recycling by bringing up the money they raise, towards evidencing the depth of her commitment, by bringing up the fact that she pays for a special bin. The quotes from P1009, as well as H1550 and W1813, all show how a normalisation of single-use products and packaging and the provision of municipal recycling services took place over time. Since the 1980s, as recycling infrastructure evolved, different norms around recycling and 'buying into' recycling systems established, shifting understandings of 'thrift' from everyday strategic planning and creative engagement for waste reduction towards commitments to separating out disposable materials into designated bins.

In the Mass Observation narratives analysed for this study, thrift was found to be framed as a form of engagement with goods and materials in day-to-day lives, through ongoing practices of appropriation and appreciation, opposing the notion that thrift is limited to decision-making at the point of purchase of goods and services. As such, our findings support previous research which suggests that thrift encompasses a broad range of household activities beyond consumption (Holmes, 2019). The aim of waste avoidance and reduction constitutes a key factor within these activities, with practices of engaging with goods and materials to extend their lifetime and utility representing an integrated element of respondents' understanding of thrift. This is the case in relation to both, their own practices but also the practices they observe in others, and regardless of whether they approve of those practices or not.

In comparison to existing studies, empirically, this study is exceptional in the sense that it constitutes a sample of the same respondents reflecting on the same topic at two different points in time, additionally to them reflecting on both, present and past. Crucially, this has revealed the context-dependency of the ways in which thrift is understood and how related practices of waste reduction and avoidance are legitimised

and justified. All born between the 1920s and 1950s, the respondents of this sample lived through extreme changes in material culture. Most of them would draw from personal memory of scarcity and hardship during the war- and post-war years, and even those who do not remember from personal experience, were raised by parents who had these experiences, and continued exercising certain practices or sharing memories, knowledge and skills. Similarly, the three decades between the directives had seen a significant shift in UK waste infrastructure, which is reflected in respondents' accounts.

For example, this study illustrates that the association of thrift with practices dedicated to "preserving the economic resources of a household such that they remain available for further acts of consumption" (Evans, 2011, 551) is represented in the Mass Observers' definition and descriptions of thrifty practices of waste reduction and avoidance. However, whilst respondents acknowledge this economic imperative as the 'primary' form of thrift - providing examples of money and resource saving practices that they observed as children, or were engaged in themselves back in the days, as adults they dissociate from this understanding of thrift. Instead, in the context of 1987 and 2016, thrift is described in terms of a conscious and enjoyable engagement with goods and materials.

As we have shown, the moral dimension of thrift is present in both, responses to the directives of 1987 and 2016. Serving as a proxy for the lack of resources and the financial hardship during and after the war, thrifty practices of waste reduction and avoidance are recognised as skills, and often cherished. As shown by the examples of Mass Observers H260 and H1470, regardless of whether respondents engage or disengage with thrift practices themselves, they generally express both, appreciation for, and their own proficiency of, the knowledge and skills associated with war- and post-war thrift. The 'waste not, want not' credo of this era is frequently referenced, with respondents either reaffirming their ongoing commitment to it, or justifying their rejection of it. This suggests that this credo is a shared reference point, understood as the morally desirable approach to household practices. In instances in which respondents express that they continue to engage in these 'past practices' at present, they commonly explain these as being motivated by consciousness and enjoyment, rather than financial necessity. This indicates that the concept of thrift has been adapted into being a shared societal code in the context of cultural concepts of alternative hedonism and ethical consumerism (Soper, 2008; 2016). It represents an ideal that opposes a consumer culture, or, in the words of Mass Observers, 'throwaway culture', associated with the second half of the 21st Century. It offers an alternative space where personal fulfilment and connection to the world around us is not derived from conspicuous consuming and gifting, but through the ongoing and conscious dealing with and care for products and materials. Although dissociated from it, the war- and post-war period is vital for this conceptualisation of thrift, with the practices of this time serving as a paradigmatic reference point for mindful engagement with, and care for, products and materials. In other words, reflecting on practices in 1987 and 2016, thrift is framed as an expression of care: caring for ourselves, consciously and with pleasure, in connection with caring for the material, social and environmental world around us.

The consciousness and enjoyment gained from caring and taking responsibility for items represent key reference points respondents draw upon when explaining their motivation to engage in practices that lead to the avoidance or reduction of single-use products and the prevention of materials going to waste. However, also in this regard, the ways in which the morality of thrift takes shape, is context dependent. Differences become apparent when comparing the responses from 1987 to those from 2016. In writings from 1987, as shown by the examples of Mass Observers W1813, P1009 and H1550, the tension between the moral obligation to avoid waste and the inherent disposability of these objects is omnipresent. Mass Observers criticise the increasing occurrence of single-use items as a societal issue, and whilst they share examples of how the life of such objects is expanded by reusing or

repurposing them within the household, much of what they describe as 'thrift' practices also concerns organisation and planning (i.e., sorting and storage) of such items, and, eventually, their transport to designated recycling sites. Whilst showing awareness that disposables are designed for a single-use, new forms of performative agency and new circuits of duty and obligation evolved amongst these Mass Observers, who belong to a generation that draws from a collective memory and embodied experience of everyday life without or with very little single-use materials. As these single-use materials continuously enter households, and in the context of difficult to access or limited waste management infrastructure, people find ways of taking care of and re-using items within the household (Hawkins, 2002; Tadesse et al., 2008). As opposed to this, in writings from 2016, the engagement with disposables, both in a political and material sense, recedes into the background. In comparison to 1987, the same Mass Observers are much less critical about disposable items. Instead, municipal recycling is commonly referred to as a proxy for waste avoidance and reduction, and therefore consciousness and thrift. The widespread visibility and access to recycling schemes have allowed to resolve the "dilemma of disposability" (Lucas, 2002, 15). As opposed to the 'rubbish' bin, putting things in the recycling bin has no finality to it. With many writers drawing on the notion that household thrift is evidenced by using the recycling bins provided by the municipality, recycling as social and environmental responsibility represents a dominant collectively shared interpretation of thrift. In this sense, the Mass Observation data indicate that 'make do and mend' – the repurposing and reusing of items within the household, which used to define the meaning of thrift, has been somewhat replaced by the idea of municipal recycling for keeping goods and materials alive, which shifted the morality of thrift towards being centred on the commitment to using the recycling bins.

The changes in narratives between 1987 and 2016 indicate that improvements in municipal recycling services led to adaptations of household practices, which as such impact what is seen as conscious – and, therefore, thrifty – handling of single-use materials. These changes went hand-in-hand with measuring success of policy and infrastructure change based on participation rates in kerbside recycling (Bulkeley and Gregson, 2009) rather than the volumes of materials that are disposed of by households, and research on environmental action having a central focus on how items are disposed of by households, rather than the volumes that are acquired and how they are used and circulated before they are disposed (Barr and Gilg, 2006). In the context of current times, when single-use products and materials, and in particular plastics, are more contested than ever, what implications do these findings hold for environmental governance? Gregson et al. (2013, 105) have, in relation to donation sites for surplus goods, pointed out that:

"it is not reuse, in an environmental sense, which is valued about these sites but rather the possibility, belief even, that the circulation of surplus things through these sites not only does social good but is the right social thing to do. Donating surplus goods is both a moral and moralising act."

The findings of our study indicate that this is also the case with single-use items in recycling bins, through which the 'right' disposal becomes a moral and moralising act. Over the past 30 years, normative ideas of consciousness and care for everyday single-use household items have been outsourced from households to municipalities. The presence of the recycling bin allows disposal to be conceptualised as not only being different from, but representing the opposite of, throwing out waste. It represents the idea of the "passing on" items, "conceptualising disposition not as the end point of a linear process production-consumption, rather as a stage of circularity of consumption movement" (Cappellini, 2009, 368). Whilst the past decades represent a period in which the UK made major progress in moving on from landfill, it also established a context for a new morality of thrift, in which ridding of things, including single-use items, represents a conscious and careful sense for engaging with materials. With disposable household items having become normalised and municipal recycling a means of

exhausting the value of items outside the realm of the household, Mass Observers' writings indicate that householders' responsibility for reducing waste has over the past years moved on from critical reflections on their existence and creative attempts to store, re-use or re-purpose them within the household, and instead become focussed on commitments to disposing as much as possible through the recycling bins.

Ulrike Ehgartner: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – original draft. Helen Holmes: Conceptualization, Resources, Writing – review & editing, Project administration, Funding acquisition.

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Data will be made available on request.

This research was supported by a Hallsworth Research Fellowship, University of Manchester, awarded to Helen Holmes, followed by a subsequent small grant from the Sustainable Consumption Institute, University of Manchester. We are grateful to the Trustees of the Mass Observation Archive and the Mass Observation correspondents. Reproduced with permission of Curtis Brown Ltd, London on behalf of the Trustees of the Mass Observation Archive. Copyright The Trustees of the Mass Observation Archive. We thank our two anonymous reviewers for feedback that helped to improve this manuscript. We are also grateful to Catherine Walker for ongoing helpful discussions relating to the study presented in this paper and Alexandra Ciocănel, who provided comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.