The Buy Nothing movement
Do the preparation task first. Then read the text and do the exercises.
Preparation
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.
I think the buy nothing trend is a beneficial movement. It encourages us to think that we should only buy things that we need. Buying only the stuff you need will reduce overconsumption, improve the environment as less stuff will be thrown away and save money. In general, I buy clothes that I actually need.
Overconsumption follows consumerism, and both are major issues in modern life today. Companies need bigger markets, and these markets need consumers. But there is a question:
Is normal consumption enough for huge companies and corporations?
The answer is very clear: NO. They encourage—or even push—you to buy more.
What is the solution? I have issues with two aspects of this phrase: first, "Buy Nothing," and second, "trend." Both are based on emotion, but we need reason.
It should be a movement, not a trend, and smarter purchasing, not buy nothing.
I think the Buy Nothing is the same extreme as overconsumption and overspending but from another side. Everything should be in moderation, it makes sense.
I didn’t know about the “Buy Nothing” trend or day, but I think it’s a really good idea. With age, I feel I’m becoming more conscious and less interested in having a full closet. I just want some functional looks. But I can’t ignore that consumerism is a reality, and the worst part is the exploitation of people in the clothing industry. We know that cheap clothes mean low salaries and poor working conditions. We also know the environmental impact, with non-profit associations collecting old clothes and then selling them or dumping them in Africa (at least, clothes from Portugal). The writer is right: we buy many things we don’t need. The biggest proof of that is the tendency to buy new clothes for every event we have. New Year’s Eve, birthdays, special dinners, weddings… every occasion becomes a good excuse.
What do you think about the buy nothing trend?
I think that this trend is positive for realize us of amount of money throw away, it is time of our life that we spend working to get it. Also realize that we are environmental damaged, that last it is our natural capital and we are exhausting it.
Excuse me please, but for number 7 in true or false, why the answer is false?
Hello Dalia Elsari,
The statement in the task is:
The two friends who did the 'buy nothing' experiment only bought food for 12 months.
The answer is false because the text says
'Working towards' means preparing for it. In other words, they didn't spend a year only buying food. They spent a year slowly stopping buying other things so that in the end - after a year - they had eliminated everything else and had only food left.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
I totally agree with this trend and I think that this is a really tough challenge because of the current landscape of our society.
We were born bombarded with product advertisements that told us the story that we need expensive things to have a strong status in society. Therefore, I believe that to be able to keep up with this type of challenge ,we first need to let go of this beliefs and try to find value in other types of things that don't involve spending money. On the other hand, this belief is a strong part of the way we grew up so it's deeply rooted in our behaviour. With the way that society is evolving, it does not get better, because we are used to getting dopamine quickly, and shopping is a classic way to achieve this.
To conclude, I think that this is a psychological challenge, and can be easier for some people than for others. I believe if we were all able to work on this as a society, the environment would benefit a lot and humanity as well in terms of health and well-being.
What do you think about the buy nothing trend?
Personally, I think this trend is beneficial to the society because it encourages people to buy fewer products that they don't want and just focus on buying only the essentials.
I do think that the Buy Nothing trend could help us to avoid overconsumpition and overspending. Nevertheless, it is not only us who have to take action, also the biggest factories and companys that pollute our enviroment with the fast fashion.