The Buy Nothing movement

The Buy Nothing movement

Read about the Buy Nothing movement and answer the questions to practise and improve your reading skills.

Do the preparation task first. Then read the text and do the exercises.

Preparation

Reading text

Social media, magazines and shop windows bombard people daily with things to buy, and British consumers are buying more clothes and shoes than ever before. Online shopping means it is easy for customers to buy without thinking, while major brands offer such cheap clothes that they can be treated like disposable items – worn two or three times and then thrown away.

In Britain, the average person spends more than £1,000 on new clothes a year, which is around four per cent of their income. That might not sound like much, but that figure hides two far more worrying trends for society and for the environment. First, a lot of that consumer spending is via credit cards. British people currently owe approximately £670 per adult to credit card companies. That's 66 per cent of the average wardrobe budget. Also, not only are people spending money they don't have, they're using it to buy things they don't need. Britain throws away 300,000 tons of clothing a year, most of which goes into landfill sites.

People might not realise they are part of the disposable clothing problem because they donate their unwanted clothes to charities. But charity shops can't sell all those unwanted clothes. 'Fast fashion' goes out of fashion as quickly as it came in and is often too poor quality to recycle; people don't want to buy it second-hand. Huge quantities end up being thrown away, and a lot of clothes that charities can't sell are sent abroad, causing even more economic and environmental problems.

However, a different trend is springing up in opposition to consumerism – the 'buy nothing' trend. The idea originated in Canada in the early 1990s and then moved to the US, where it became a rejection of the overspending and overconsumption of Black Friday and Cyber Monday during Thanksgiving weekend. On Buy Nothing Day people organise various types of protests and cut up their credit cards. Throughout the year, Buy Nothing groups organise the exchange and repair of items they already own.

The trend has now reached influencers on social media who usually share posts of clothing and make-up that they recommend for people to buy. Some YouTube stars now encourage their viewers not to buy anything at all for periods as long as a year. Two friends in Canada spent a year working towards buying only food. For the first three months they learned how to live without buying electrical goods, clothes or things for the house. For the next stage, they gave up services, for example haircuts, eating out at restaurants or buying petrol for their cars. In one year, they'd saved $55,000.

The changes they made meant two fewer cars on the roads, a reduction in plastic and paper packaging and a positive impact on the environment from all the energy saved. If everyone followed a similar plan, the results would be impressive. But even if you can't manage a full year without going shopping, you can participate in the anti-consumerist movement by refusing to buy things you don't need. Buy Nothing groups send a clear message to companies that people are no longer willing to accept the environmental and human cost of overconsumption.

Task 1

Task 2

Discussion

Download
Worksheet81.27 KB

Language level

Average: 4 (33 votes)

Submitted by cittàutopica on Thu, 12/11/2020 - 16:44

Permalink
About the buy nothing trend I think it's an effective advertising system for making aware the people concerning the negative consequences of the consumerism, but we ought to be careful to throw the baby out with the bath water.
Profile picture for user Hennadii

Submitted by Hennadii on Wed, 21/10/2020 - 09:35

Permalink
I think all of us have to pause to think about the enormous amount of garbage we produce every day. It looks like our planet will become similar to the "Wall-E" cartoon, where people live on spaceships because there is no room for us on the Earth. I think most of the stuff we buy might wasn't be produced at all. Many of them are cheap but poor quality and can be used only once. And we produce too many packings for that disposable stuff, and they are all disposable as well. Not sure "the buy nothing trend" is an answer but it's better than nothing. I think this problem must be emphasized as one of the most important to our healthy future and we should take some big steps to decline consumerism. Otherwise, I hope Elon Musk will be successful in his space expansion program )) We may need it soon

Submitted by Camilo on Fri, 09/10/2020 - 05:00

Permalink
Despite it's a good proposal to reduce environmental impact, it also has its important downsides. The idea would hit different if they suggest not to be too extremist since they didn't use services that are quite useful to us and probably are the only ones we can use due to our busy lives. They should keep in mind that some bussinesses must work so that the economy remains stable and enough to provide both goods and services we need for our daily life. I find we should take Scandinavian countries' examples, where their culture is to recycle (and they include stuff we no longer use and probably single-use ones)

Submitted by Julia19 on Mon, 27/07/2020 - 15:54

Permalink
I' m sure the nothing buying trend is the essential social flow. People buy things because of boredom and media's inluence even though they could live easily without it. I try to join to this idea of litle consuming and it shows me what things are realy matter in our life and it isn't buying new things.

Submitted by Aakash Jain on Thu, 18/06/2020 - 03:12

Permalink
According to me, 'buy nothing trend' can not only benefit us but our environment as well. With advancement in technology, improvements in the way information is presented to people, advertisers try their best to convince people to buy products by putting up discounts, special offers, limited time offers etc.. and unfortunately, people end up buying them even if it is of no use to them. Some industries are preparing useless commodities only beacuse we are buying them. Once we stop, they also have to stop. This will help us in saving money, resources - which can be used in preparing something useful and will also reduce the amount of waste that is being generated when these commodities are of no use to us.
Profile picture for user OlaIELTS

Submitted by OlaIELTS on Thu, 07/05/2020 - 02:06

Permalink
The trend is a welcomed idea in as much as it has positive impact on people and the environment.

Submitted by Konul on Mon, 13/04/2020 - 17:38

Permalink
i agree that i follow this trend i can save my money, but i am not sure i want to save my money while not to do something like haircut or buying items which i need. i think it depends on person himself, because he or she must understand what he/she needs or not. Generally buy nothing during the whole year is not a good idea for me

Submitted by Lau on Fri, 03/04/2020 - 21:12

Permalink
I think it is a great initiative, because certainly consumerism grows more and more every day and the human being loses perspective of what is really important, to the point where he stops paying for basic services such as electricity, water, telephone, gas for compulsively buying fashionable clothes and accessories according to the season of the year. However, we have to be careful. How far Buy Nothing should go? The world advances and the idea is to simplify the life of the human being. The aim of this campaign in general is to stop spending on things that are not really necessary, I call them ¨invented needs¨, but not go to the extreme of never eating out home or cutting your hair yourself for not going to a hairdresser. The extremes are bad, the idea of ​​all this is to make you reflect on what you really need in your life, so that you do not reach consumerism, but also do not make it more uncomfortable. In the world, everyone has his role and work according to what he likes and inspires him. So is just as important who designs clothes and manufactures them to be able to dress people, as the doctor who attends a hospital. The real problem is our mentality, and this campaign can awaken our common sense, a call of conscience, without radicalizing us.

Submitted by Lau on Fri, 03/04/2020 - 20:49

Permalink
I thing The Buy Nothing trend is a excellent campaign against the consumerism.