Buy Nothing Day

In the past some members of Gluaiseacht have celebrated Buy Nothing Day in Ireland with small local actions. In 2005 a few of us in our environmental/greens society at UCD wanted to highlight the environmental damage associated with excessive consumption…but we wanted it to be fun, cheerful, and positive – to give students a pleasant surprise (rather then another lecture) that might to get them to stop and talk. Nothing makes people stop like free food, so we decided to hold a food giveaway outside the library and provide information about over consumption and about Buy Nothing Day which would be the following day. A week beforehand a group of us painted a colourful backdrop to our stall on a big white shower curtain that had been thrown out of student residences; saying ‘Buy Nothing Day – Buy Less, live More’. An organic farmer and seller agreed to donate a load of ingredients for a tasty soup which we cooked up in a flat on campus the morning before the giveaway. A visit to a Superquinn bakery the previous evening sorted us out with three black sacks of free bread that would otherwise have been sent to landfill. So, armed with hot organic soup, bread, cups, a table borrowed from the arts block and leaflets explaining what we were up to, as well as leaflets with suggested activities to fill a day free from shopping, other leaflets with DIY cosmetics and food recipes, we set up on the main walkway through the college at lunchtime. The reaction was great. People were surprised enough to stop and chat, wanted to find out more about the idea behind BND and why we cared about consuming less. We soon ran out of the popular DIY leaflets and recipes, ran out of soup and bread, and felt that we had succeed in making a few people think about the viability of over consuming. The response was so positive that we ran the stall again in Spring to promote a debate on GM agriculture. For Buy Nothing Day 2006 we tried out a Swap Stall instead, where students could bring things they didn’t want anymore and take things they did. The buzz around the stall wasn’t anything compared to our free food stall, but many students who talked to us liked the idea of holding a regular swapping event in the college. Obviously we did not want to confine thinking about how we can reduce the pressure on the earth’s resources to one day…many of the activities that go on all over the world on Buy Nothing Day would be just as fun and effective on any day of the year; but it was easier to cajole accomplices into joining us when they knew that people acting in solidarity elsewhere. Ideas from BND abroad that might work here..or at least give you a bit of a laugh this November 24th …

• Dress up as a big hairy Consumer Monsters and scamper around your main shopping street on a busy Saturday afternoon caressing shop fronts, coveting people’s shopping bags and handing out fliers about how to have fun without shopping…

• Set up an Affluenza Clinic..hand out “anti-greed” pills and bottomless shopping bags or run a stall where people can cut up their credit cards…

• Stage a Meditate-In in a busy shopping centre (This one has been in Japan and here Dundrum Shopping Centre..with good responses!)…

• offer determined looking shoppers free bags full of Nothing, Huge discounts on nothing, Nothing in a bag and Two nothings for the price of nothing…go into a shop wearing a tshirt that says ‘Everything Instore Half Price Today’ and start tidying up…

• dress as ‘consumer sheep’ strolling through a shopping centre proclaiming “‘Baaa’ Nothing Day”, disturbing shoppers into questioning their consumption…

• hold a street party with free market, food, swap stalls, kids crafty area, information and music - there are some great reworked consumer carols to sing, or take your inspiration from Rhythms of Resistance Manchester who entertained hundreds of people with samba encouraging them to Stop Buying Start Dancing

Read more…
www.adbusters.org/bnd/
http://ecoplan.org/ibnd/
http://www.creativeacts.org/
http://www.spacehijackers.org/

 

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