Image is copyright of Buy Nothing Day UK
“Lock up your wallets and purses, cut up your credit cards and dump the love of your life – shopping. ”
“Saturday November 26th is Buy Nothing Day. It’s a day where you challenge yourself, your family and friends to switch off from shopping and tune into life.”
So says the blurb on the Buy Nothing Day website. You can see where they are coming from. Most of us would agree that there is more to life than shopping and so why not devote a day to the appreciation of a simpler, non-consumerist existence?
I’m all for devoting time to friends, family & fresh air, but the notion that it’s wrong to buy stuff is plain crass. Especially now. It oversimplifies a message to the point that it’s counter-productive. It hijacks an opportunity to say something useful and says something destructive instead.
How many thousands of struggling small businesses, the lifeblood of our economy and the green shoots of its recovery, rely on consumer purchases to sustain them and provide for the people that work in them? They need all the help they can get – many relying on the next few weeks of seasonal shopping to carry them through another year.
Examining the environmental and ethical impact of consumerism is a worthy agenda – but let’s keep it real. Buy local – YES! Buy quality – YES! Buy from small businesses – YES! Support ethical businesses – YES! But please don’t think that buy buying NOTHING you will achieve ANYTHING very much at all.
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