Recycled Goods : Middle age and increased income decreases environmental commitment

Sammanfattning: Environmental impact is a growing concern of many and work to decrease the influence on the environment are becoming more common and is in some cases even illegal for companies to disregard from. For the average person many things can be done to decrease their personal impact on to the environment such as consuming less, buying environmentally friendly goods, recycling ones garbage or buying goods that are already recycled. This study emphasizes on the subject of recycled goods since a trend of new stores has started to arise. These stores uses the basics from yard sales and flea markets but capitalize them using big scale economy.  They collect recycled goods from junkyards and through donations from companies and individuals aim to resell them. In this study a case of one of these stores called Returbutiken, located in Umeå Sweden, were acknowledged as it took the idea one step further by collecting furniture and other goods and restored them in their own carpentry. Returbutiken is an initiative made by the municipality of Umeå to recycle the goods the municipality does not need, donations from people and companies and also to collect items from the local junkyard. This also creates very cheap goods which have a much higher quality than those found at different flea markets. Thus this study was performed to investigate what motivation and what behavior the customers of this store had. Why were they shopping? Was it because of the price or was it because of their willingness to be more environmentally friendly? The behavior was researched through a comparative study through a questionnaire that was handed out at Returbutiken and compared with the answers of the same questionnaire which was answered by general people at the city of Umeå. The results show that there was a difference of behavior and attitudes between the average respondent in the city of Umeå compared to Returbutiken. People at Returbutiken were generally more committed and optimistic towards the environment than the average respondent in Umeå. The result shows that the age group of 30-45 prioritized the environment less than other age groups. This study also conducts that the general respondents in Umeå prioritized the environment less when they had a higher income.