6 ms·
It doesn't really say anything about the behavior of the majority of people. A small portion can drive this number down. As an example, say 8 out of 10 people
by jolmg 4y ago
It doesn't really say anything about the behavior of the majority of people. A small portion can drive this number down.
As an example, say 8 out of 10 people have 7 sets of clothes, one for each day of the week, and use the same sets for a whole year. The remaining 2 out of 10 use a new set of clothes every day, so they go through 365 sets of clothes in a year. That comes to clothes being used an average of 4.64 times:
$ python -c 'print(
# average used times in a year
(
(
8 # people
* 7 # sets of clothes
* (365 / 7) # used times in a year
) + (
2 # people
* 365 # sets of clothes
* 1 # used times in a year
)
) / (
8 # people
* 7 # sets of clothes
+
2 # people
* 365 # sets of clothes
)
)'
4.643765903307888
- karaterobot 4y agoFair enough, but how many people do you know who wear a new set of clothes every day? I know zero!
- jolmg 4y agoKnowing people like that would depend on your social circle. Anyway, it's just an example to show how that number can be easily influenced by a small minority. The real numbers are going to be different.
- bertil 4y agoThere’s a small minority of people who do that -- not 20% of the population, but large enough to influence statistics. I wouldn't be surprised if that was 20% of women between 15 and 45-year-old. They also buy clothes that they never wear (other than trying). I’ve seen estimates as high as for some people, they never wear 40% of the clothes that they buy before disposing of them. On the other end, I’m also surprised by the “one-year” thing: most of my clothes are more than five-year-old and they are fine. For underwear and t-shirts, I typically wear them once a week.
- jolmg 4y ago> On the other end, I’m also surprised by the “one-year” thing: most of my clothes are more than five-year-old and they are fine. Because these are the minority of clothes despite being used by the majority of people in the example I gave, changing the timeframe doesn't really change the average. Changing the example to use a 5 year timeframe, for instance, only changes the average to 4.92. > not 20% of the population Right, and it also ought to be less than 80% that buys clothes no more often than once per year or per 5 years. Both extremes are exaggerated to not have to insert more tiers than needed into the example.
- qbrass 4y agoThey don't. They cycle through the same 3-7 sets of clothes until they go threadbare, and ignore everything else in their closet unless they need something for a special occasion.