Clothing Disposal Behavior of Taiwanese Consumers with Respect to Environmental Protection and Sustainability

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The presented article tackles a very important and current problem regarding  sustainable clothing disposal and consumers’  behavior with respect to environmental protections and prosocial behavior. However, I would like to present  few comments  and suggestions which, in my opinion, can improve the presented study:

- The research procedure  subsection should be developed. It is limited to the main issue of the article, its aim and very general presented tools used to make research only. In my opinion, the article would benefit if the description of the research procedure was more detailed.

-  The section of the Results and discussion should also be developed. I would consider moving almost  the entire subsection of Reliability and validity to the Results and discussion section or as an attachment below the article.  Moreover, the discussion should be followed by a presenting the results achieved in a more transparent and ordered way. The factors in the models relating to resale framework, donation framework  and reuse framework presented as figures  1.1, 1.2 and 1.3  should be described in more details in the main text of the article.  They are also a part of the conducted analysis.

- The conclusions should be developed and adjusted  to slightly modified  content of the article. It would be good to introduce the limitations during conducting analysis and indicate further directions of the research.  

-    I would also consider  incorporating the references to the 2020 publications e.g. Hwang Y.Y., Jo G.Y. & Oh M.J., The Persuasive Effect of Competence and Warmth on Clothing Sustainable Consumption: The Moderating Role of Consumer Knowledge and Social Embeddedness, Sustainability 2020, 12(7), 2661; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12072661;

Lehner M., Mont O., Mariani G. and Mundaca L., Circular Economy in Home Textiles: Motivations of IKEA Consumers in Sweden,  Sustainability 2020, 12(12), 5030; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12125030.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

L18-19 There is repetition in the abstract that should be corrected. 

Intro: This needs to be contextualised - presumably to Taiwan and especially statements such as: 'Article 19 regulations in the Environmental Education Act in 2011... '

L54 literature review - the review covers a range of key studies on the topic, including some from other culture contexts. Having read the discussion and conclusion I feel that more could have been done to explore the nuanced cultural and demographic contrasts between these studies and the findings from predominantly student (ie young) population in Taiwan. This give potential for a more meaningful critical discussion of the findings, some of which could possibly be explained by differences in the sample. 

L60. This is confusing - is this per minute or per year? ...clothing every minute are discarded per year ...

L66 this paragraph refers to literature which is very western orientated. Is there anything that relates to Taiwan? If not perhaps explain different context as this may be relevant to behaviour. 

L244 See reference to Figures 1.1, 1.2 & 1.3

L247 Please provide more information about clothing-related groups as used to sample participants. E.g. were these professional or social groups? Discuss limitations of social media sampling and potential for bias.

L264, 278, 293. Please label these as Hypothesis 1 and 4, 2 and 5 etc for clarity. 

The discussion focuses on the statistical validity of the findings and makes superficial comparisons to other studies. This could be more critical - see point re L54.

Figures 1.1, 1.2 & 1.3. I like these figures, but wonder whether there is some opportunity to weight the arrows or shade cells to reflect significance. However, they also raise some questions. You refer to 32 observational variables and in these figures some of those are used. I feel that it would be helpful to identify the variables, or to have a more detailed discussion of these in the earlier section and if possible identify them in the figures. If not possible, perhaps those with above/below typical influence on the findings could be highlighted as this could add more depth to the findings. 

The conclusion is light. It could make more of the potential value. contribution of the paper, and the most meaningful inferences and recommendations could be much more specific - at present they are very generic. Limitations could be discussed in more detail, with direction for specific areas of future study to develop the argument further. 

Overall, I very much like this paper for its straightforwardness and methodical approach, but at the same time am disappointed that there is seemingly no inference as to why the findings vary from previous studies, as might have been discovered with a mixed methodology. I appreciate that the authors recognise this. However, I do feel that with more discussion about the inferences and more nuanced findings from both previous and this study, there could be clearer direction for limitations and recommendations for further study that would go some way to compensate for this inevitable shortcoming. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

I am not sure why "this study discusses the casual relationships between environmental values, prosocial behaviors and clothing disposal on the basis of behaviorism theory ...".

One of the most important terms in this paper - Environmental values - has not been precisely defined.

The description of the reaserch method is insufficient.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for incorporating the comments and suggestions in the revised version of the article. I have no further comments regarding the text.