Buy Nothing Day
I must readily admit, I had never heard of Buy Nothing Day (which is the day this blog entry is posted) until I read the BBC article all about it. Buy Nothing Day is—as should be obvious to all but I’ll confirm it in case there’s any doubt—a day dedicated to not shopping. What a brilliant way of highlighting the harmful nature of consumerism.
Campaigners say the time for Buy Nothing Day to gain a higher profile and greater participation has come at last. They point to growing trends towards environmental awareness and old-fashioned thrift resulting from the ever-increasing emphasis upon recycling, and how much we waste.
‘We know that in the industrialised countries there has been no rise in general levels of happiness, as measured in surveys on job satisfaction and figures on mental health, since about 1975,” economist Andrew Oswald from Warwick University is reported as saying. ‘People in the developed West are beginning to realise that more material goods does not equal more happiness.’
It’s true, it is about time, but shopping is a hard habit to break given that it makes people feel good, albeit fleetingly, in an increasingly miserable and oppressive society where their every movement is monitored on CCTV, every detail of their lives held on government and private company databases. Nevertheless, as someone who loves shopping I have found one way of tackling the habit is to develop a conscientious attitude to what you buy, and how you conduct yourself in the shops. You don’t have to quit shopping like smoking or junk food—well, you really shouldn’t shop today if you can manage it—but all of us are well-advised to reign in the habit somewhat.
I can no longer accept plastic bags without feeling really, really guilty—rightly so, I believe. I mean, I know where they end up most of the time—in landfill. They take over a hundred years to degrade, and even then there’s a remnant of toxicity. And so I don’t accept plastic bags any more. If I forget to take a reusable bag with me, I can’t buy more than I can comfortably carry in my hands. When I do buy things, I am forever mindful of how much packaging is used, what to do with the packaging, and such things as food miles—how far the food has travelled to get to the shop—and additives, as well as fat content, salt levels and sugar. If I buy something made of plastic, it’s because it’s going to last a very, very long time. I know that we will lose the capacity to manufacture oil-based plastics over the next twenty years or so.
One year ago I didn’t factor in a quarter of the things I do today when making purchasing decisions. It doesn’t take me any longer to do my shopping, be it the household groceries or ‘pleasure shopping’ for, say, books or clothes. But it does make me feel like I am making a difference, because I am. I have become, most of the time—I can’t honestly say all of the time, not yet—an ethical shopper. Shopping is still as much fun as it ever was, but it isn’t quite so mindlessly hedonistic a pursuit for me as it once was. Actually thinking about what I buy empowers and educates me.
Forget the myth that shopping with a conscience is going to cost you dear. Sure it will if you don’t use your brain: supermarkets are full of overpriced produce aimed at tapping into the pockets of the ethically-minded shopper. But buying locally produced fruit and vegetables from the market will likely save you a lot of money, and reduce your waste and carbon footprint, than buying the homogenised equivalents in your local Tesco or Sainsbury’s. Have chickens as pets instead of or alongside cats and dogs, and you’ll never have to pay for eggs or soil improver for the garden ever again. They’ll eat your vegetable left-overs as well, and prepare your vegetable beds for sowing.
People often assume that Paganism inherently means radical thought and direct action. It doesn’t at all. I have met some remarkably lame Pagans in my time when it comes to ecological awareness. Christians, Muslims and Buddhists, too. By contrast, I have met some resolute atheists and agnostics who, while dismissing talk of Gaia, spirituality, and the Divine, manage to put many people of faith to shame with their approach to green issues. The disease of consumerism is pervasive, affecting nearly everyone to some degree but you don’t need to be a saint or martyr, a devotee of any faith or belief system, to start making positive lifestyle changes. When it comes to healing the world, all are welcome to the zero carbon party.
Buy Nothing Day should appeal to everyone who cares about what is happening to the world in the 21st Century. Nobody is saying stop spending money forever. It’s just one day out of 365. You have another 364 days in which you can indulge yourself, finances permitting. But the more of us that take part in Buy Nothing Day, the bigger the wake-up call could be for the high street businesses that care far more about taking your hard-earned cash than they do about saving the planet. Don’t, please, dismiss the possible as idealistic. Besides, being an idealist is a good thing.
One person can make a difference but in order to do so, you have to be that person. You. Imagine if everyone in the UK, let alone the world, bought nothing today. Not a stamp, not a chocolate bar, no petrol, nothing. Our invisible yet immensely powerful capitalist lords and masters would suddenly feel a lot less smug about their hold over us. I’d love to see their smiles fade. Wouldn’t you? Who knows what we could accomplish by undermining the system in this way…
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