She went on further when describing the creation of a

She went on further when describing the creation of a
wardrobe closet from recycled milk cartons:
That is actually what I put my clothes in. I’ve col-
lected milk bottle cartons and I just stuff them on top
of each other and used them as a clothes cupboard.
(Nat, 22)
Reflecting on her childhood experiences, Sasha
described:
My mum always bought me second-hand uniform
kits and second-hand books. She always goes to
second-hand book shops, always goes to garage sales,
and always recycles and stuff and I guess I kind of
adopted those habits [recycling instead of making
new purchases] without thinking about it. (Sasha, 22)
These quotes illustrate that prosumption practices can
either evolve as habitual or newly adopted practices. The
former is more common among the ‘less aggressive’
environmentalists who perceive green consumption as a
lifestyle. The latter is more prominent among the ‘more
aggressive’ environmentalists who aim to present their
lifestyle as special and different from that of mainstream
consumers. As Sasha, one of the ‘less aggressive’ envi-
ronmentalists, described:
I guess some people will be prepared to make dif-
ferent compromises. I might not be prepared to
compromise on something cos’ maybe I am more
mainstream than someone else … like probably you
know some people may go out in the bush, build a
house, have solar power, and grow their own veggies.
Whereas people like me need to be in the city with
other people and I don’t have a garden and I can’t
grow my food but I’m prepared to make certain
sacrifices like not have a car and say not buy heaps of
new clothes every year. I don’t buy bottled water and
things like that … I buy things for me that are kind of
natural and easy to incorporate in my life and then in
the Environment Collective. (Sasha, 22)
Overall, these types of prosumption practices also pro-
vide evidence that green consumers tend to move away
from the negative associations of modern consumption,
especially for the consumption of commodities such as
basic food items, clothing, or even furniture. Hence, these
practices operate outside of the dominant social paradigm
and dominant market mechanism. As in previous thematic
categories, some of the informants had a clear environ-
mental rationale for their adoption of prosumption prac-
tices. However, the majority were not solely driven by
environmental concerns but more by the enjoyment asso-
ciated with being producers of commodities, the social
aspects of prosumption practices, or simply, as was the
case for Nat and Sasha, by habit.
Green Whispers
We label our last thematic category green whispers. In
effect, this category describes the methods by which our
informants interact with others while implementing these
practices. This category is significantly different from the
first three categories in which our focus was to classify the
consumption practices of our informants. While there were
some differences among our informants with respect to the
number of practices they utilized and/or the level of