{"id":9473,"date":"2016-10-26T15:22:32","date_gmt":"2016-10-26T19:22:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/?p=9473"},"modified":"2017-02-07T16:12:33","modified_gmt":"2017-02-07T21:12:33","slug":"reuse-it-or-lose-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/2016\/10\/26\/reuse-it-or-lose-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Reuse It or Lose It"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ecological and economic anthropologist Cindy Isenhour\u2019s photographic exhibit at the UMaine Hudson Museum explores Maine\u2019s thriving reuse economy<\/em><\/p>\n

By David Sims<\/p>\n

UMaine assistant professor of anthropology and Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions associate Cindy Isenhour<\/a> attended college as a business communications major\u2014with minors in marketing and management, worked as an account executive for an advertising agency, had something of an epiphany, and did a one-eighty.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had grown up in a household that was not particularly socially or environmentally engaged and at this point in my life I started to think more critically about what I was doing,\u201d Isenhour says. \u201cSo I decided to go to graduate school, and for my master\u2019s work I did an historical examination of what led to the development of the really strong mass consumer culture in the U.S.\u201d Both Isenhour\u2019s master\u2019s and Ph.D. are in anthropology. In her continuing journey, years later, Isenhour has trained her research focus on the strong culture of materials reuse in her adopted home state of Maine. A current exhibit at UMaine\u2019s Hudson Museum provides a vivid portrait of this culture.<\/p>\n

\"Jeans\"<\/p>\n

The reuse of material goods represents a simpler and less costly means of consumption compared to, in Isenhour\u2019s words, \u201cthe linear production-consumption system\u201d that drives economies, devours vast quantities of natural resources, and generally results in prodigious amounts of waste. Consider a single pair of blue jeans\u2014an item of clothing that requires 11,000 gallons of water to produce.<\/p>\n

Through photographs and detailed captions, the exhibit details Isenhour\u2019s research of the reuse culture throughout Maine. Isenhour took the bulk of the photographs in the display (with additional contributions from her husband Ben and UMaine Ph.D. student Courtney King) and wrote all the descriptive captions. Many of the images capture the innate beauty of\u00a0the \u201cfound art\u201d of reuse items: shelves of well-worn, retired boat propellers, a glinting collection of blue-green glass telephone insulators.<\/p>\n

\"Cindy_Isenhour\"<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s aimed at educating the general public about the topic,\u201d Isenhour says of the exhibit. She adds, \u201cAnd one thing that has surprised me when talking to people about all this is how very few of them have even thought about reuse, period, but especially from the environmental, economic or social perspectives that define our project.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cResourceful ME\u201d examines the range of economic entities that support reuse in the state of Maine, ranging from flea markets, yard sales, antique markets, repair shops and architectural salvage to tool rental companies, pawn shops and the widely used Uncle\u00a0Henry\u2019s and Craigslist peer-to-peer exchange platforms. Whether the goal is to provide low-cost goods to families, protect the environment, connect with others in the community, or merely make a dollar, all are essential elements of Maine\u2019s strong and long-standing culture of reuse.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith its vibrant tradition of \u2018waste not,\u2019 Maine has lessons to share with other communities interested in sustainability and resilience\u201d according to the exhibit.<\/p>\n

Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without<\/strong><\/p>\n

There is nothing novel or new about reusing stuff, of course, and Isenhour points out that defining the practice is, in some ways, a matter of semantics. She notes, \u201cSome people characterize it as part and parcel of choosing \u2018voluntary simplicity\u2019 as a lifestyle and the Quakers have a really long history of conserving resources and living simply. So the root of this comes from a quest for simplicity, in certain ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Americans\u2019 consumer culture in general is anything but simple. According to the exhibit, the average American throws away more than four pounds of stuff every day, which over the course of a year adds up to more than 1,400 pounds per person. And total waste generation rates continue to rise year after year, resulting in increased financial strain for municipal governments, landfill pressure, and environmental contamination.<\/p>\n

\"Reuse<\/a>\u201cAnd yet, here in Maine, we can be proud to have one of the lowest per capita waste generation rates in the country due, in part, to a strong culture of reuse,\u201d says Isenhour.<\/p>\n

As part of a larger Mitchell Center-funded project focused on materials management<\/a> (solid waste), Isenhour works with a team of scholars investigating the reuse, repair and resale of objects as they relate to conserving Earth\u2019s resources and helping to ensure more resilient and just economies for future generations.<\/p>\n

Her interest in the reuse aspect of the project was sparked, in part, by meetings she\u2019s attended with the Urban Sustainability Directors Network.<\/p>\n

Says Isenhour, \u201cGoing to these meetings\u2014populated mainly by sustainability directors for large U.S. cities like San Francisco, Portland, Chicago, Boston\u2014I learned that reuse has really come into focus in many cities where they are exploring policies and programs designed to encourage the extension of product lifetimes. The problem is, we have very little data about the economic, environmental and social value or potential for reuse.\u201d<\/p>\n

Helping to fill in this data gap is where Isenhour\u2019s team comes in.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are realizing that the consumption of goods and these linear product cycles that extract resources and put tons of energy into them to produce products only to bury them in the ground\u2014we just can\u2019t continue to do that,\u201d Isenhour says. \u201cSo our work is not just about disposal prevention, it\u2019s also about the prevention of economic waste\u2014the idea that we\u2019ve invested human and natural and economic capital in these products and suddenly their value is just gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not if Uncle Henry has anything to say about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cUncle Henry\u2019s is huge, the circular sells out and the number of people using the online platform is impressive,\u201d says Isenhour. And this, she adds, is a very positive development given the \u201caging nature of a lot of our antiques and collectible shops.\u201d That is, research, including her own, has shown that traditional reuse venues in Maine are run by people who are, on average, in their 60s and, thus, might not be in business for much longer before retirement.<\/p>\n

\u201cData suggests that traditional reuse avenues may be something that\u2019s disappearing but, on other hand, we see online outlets like Uncle Henry\u2019s and Craigslist are very popular among younger people,\u201d Isenhour says. \u201cAnd so raises it the question, are they really fading out or is the reuse sector just shifting in form?\u201d<\/p>\n

Evidence of a shift in the form of reuse can be found in the popularity of collaborative consumption and sharing economies among younger people\u2014largely in more urban areas\u2014who participate in things like tool libraries and car sharing where people exchange useful items without actual ownership.<\/p>\n

\"Propellers\"<\/a>Isenhour adds that completion of a statewide survey her group is doing will provide the age breakdown to determine what forms of reuse people are participating in\u2014virtual, brick-and-mortar like thrift shops, peer-to-peer, etc. \u201cOnce we can get that data then we\u2019ll have really good information on whether young people really don\u2019t care about reuse or if they\u2019re just participating in a completely different way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regardless, the Pine Tree State\u2019s strong tradition of reuse is not likely to disappear anytime soon. Says Isenhour, \u201cI\u2019ve never seen a reuse economy like that in Maine and I\u2019ve lived in a lot of different places. It\u2019s just really vibrant and to me it raises all sorts of questions about how it came to be and why is it so vibrant here compared to other places. There are even lots of people who travel to Maine because of it\u2014there are blogs about Maine thrifting and antique tourism.\u201d<\/p>\n

One interesting finding from Isenhour\u2019s recent survey of reuse businesses suggests that reuse has a significant financial benefit in Maine in the form of tourist dollars. \u201cOver 80 percent of the responding businesses reported that customers from out of state make up a large portion of their customer base and thus bring in a significant percentage of their income,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Isenhour and her group\u2019s research into Maine\u2019s reuse economy, both historically and currently, will answer some important questions that, perhaps, will help ensure the state\u2019s tradition of thriftiness, environmental stewardship, and strong local communities continues well into the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ecological and economic anthropologist Cindy Isenhour\u2019s photographic exhibit at the UMaine Hudson Museum explores Maine\u2019s thriving reuse economy By David Sims UMaine assistant professor of anthropology and Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions associate Cindy Isenhour attended college as a business communications major\u2014with minors in marketing and management, worked as an account executive for an advertising […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":957,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","spc_primary_category":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":3,"label":"News"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":{"display_name":"mitchellcenter","author_link":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/author\/mitchellcenter\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":3,"name":"News","slug":"news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":611,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":3,"category_count":611,"category_description":"","cat_name":"News","category_nicename":"news","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/957"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9473"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11691,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9473\/revisions\/11691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}