2016-10-26
Emma Davidson
Do you ever feel like you're just on an endless cycle of working longer hours to buy more stuff you don't really need? It seems there are a lot of people who feel that way. So many, in fact, that October has been declared Buy Nothing New Month. Thousands of Australians have pledged to buy nothing new for the whole month, with exceptions for things such as food, hygiene, and medical items.
Buy Nothing New has come about in response to a growing awareness of affluenza. Affluenza is a disease of consumerism in which people are led to believe that they will feel happier if they buy more stuff, which means they need to work longer hours to earn more money to buy more stuff. But because they're working longer hours, they have less time for relationships and community engagement and creative endeavours, which leads to feeling less happy. And so begins an endless spiral down into longer working hours and more clutter.
Richard Denniss explains in this talk from 2010:
Richard's diagnosis of affluenza has clearly resonated with thousands of Australians, who have pledged online to Buy Nothing New for the whole month. The idea is that by the end of the month, they will have more awareness of why they choose to buy things, what the impact of their consumption is on the planet's resources and on workers around the world, and will be able to make more conscious choices in future about what and how they consume stuff.
Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. - Mahatma Ghandi
People who have pledged to Buy Nothing New have reported saving around $1,000 over the month. Certainly they will have reduced their carbon footprint, and gained a new respect for the things they already have by trying to make them last longer and be more repairable.
I first heard about the idea of buying nothing new back in 2006. A friend who lived nearby had decided to buy nothing new for an entire year. The exceptions were food and hygiene, medicines, and infrastructure (electrics, plumbing etc) for the house she was building. Sounds radical, but as with many big changes, it is a decision she came to in a series of smaller steps.
It began with a nagging thought that she had too much stuff cluttering up her house and her life. She saw a TV show in which someone talked about how people buy things thinking it will make them happy. Then she started making smaller changes in her lifestyle to reduce her environmental impact, and consequently became more aware of the impact of her consumption choices. And after a while, all these things added up to the feeling that she needed to do something radical if she really wanted to make a long-lasting change in her consumption habits.
You are not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. - Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club.
Buying nothing new doesn't just mean going without. What it requires is a moment of thought before making a purchasing decision.
- Do I really need this? How would I manage if I couldn't buy this thing?
- If I do need a thing I don't already own, could I borrow or hire it instead of buying it?
- Could I swap a thing I already have for the thing I need?
- Can I buy second-hand instead of new?
- Can I repair a thing I have? Or make a new one?
Over the course of her challenge, I watched as my friend developed new skills. Sewing, making all kinds of toys and games, and repairing what she already had. There were so many changes in that year - from little things, like using plastic containers instead of plastic food wrap; to big things, like salvaging fittings for the house she was building. She blogged about her experience and it was archived by Trove at the National Library of Australia.
At the end of the year, she didn't go on a spending spree at Plastics R Us. While she did buy some things brand new again, her reliance on buying stuff was largely broken, and her consumer choices were made with more awareness of the labour and natural resources that go into making, storing, and maintaining each object. She also learned a lot about the ethics of how things are made, and made choices in the foods she bought by switching to more fair trade and organic products.
There are plenty of resources available for people who want to reduce their reliance on buying new things.
Jessi Arrington only wears second-hand clothing, and talked about why she does this and what she gets out of the experience on the TED stage:
Groups dedicated to learning skills in sewing, woodworking, soap-making, and car repairs can be found through local environment centres and co-ops. There's even commercial products like the Fairphone that are making it easier for people who do want to buy a new product to choose one that is more repairable and is kinder to the planet and workers.
Ultimately though, buying nothing new requires mental work as much as physical change. As Corinne Grant said in her book Lessons In Letting Go:
If all of this stuff had been wrenched from me before I had sorted myself out mentally, you would now be looking for a psychiatric hospital for me.
Whether you decide to buy nothing new for a month, or a year, or just in that one moment when you're having second thoughts about buying that one thing, what you are doing is making a choice to put more of your resources into what we collectively already have. In itself, that's a statement that what we already have in this world is actually pretty good - it's just a matter of better distributing it. The revolution is just an op-shop T-shirt away.