The Buy Nothing movement

Preparation task Match the definitions (a–h) with the vocabulary (1–8). overconsumption to hit someone with a lot of something, without pausing disposable designed to be thrown away after use consumerism a place where rubbish is buried under the ground to bombard to appear to spring up the practice of buying and owning lots of products a landfill site the act of spending more money than you should overspending .using too much of something an influencer someone who uses social media to advertise products to their followers Reading text: The Buy Nothing movement 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. People buy clothes because they want to throw them away. True False The amount the average Briton owes on credit cards is one third of the amount they spend on clothes each year. True False Charities can find ways to use clothes even if they are not very good quality. True False f everyone followed the Buy Nothing idea, the environment would benefit. True False Complete the sentences with words from the box. 1. Fast fashion is made quickly and cheaply.2. Some clothing is so cheap that people can afford to wear it a couple of times and throw it away.3. There is a worrying trend for more consumers spending on credit cards.4. Giving clothes to charity shops does not completely solve the problem.5. Make sure you only donate clothes that people will want to buy second-hand.6. A lot of clothes donated to charity cannot be reused and end up in landfill sites.