Tempted to buy extra stuff today? The pressure is on, the ads are running, and it’s hard to avoid all of the sales. Here are a few ideas to manage the shopping frenzy:
Buy nothing.
Step outside and get some fresh air.
Visit your favorite green space.
Call or visit a loved one.
Spend time with yourself or a pet, with your favorite seasonal drink.
Really need an item? Consider buying just essential items that need to be purchased anyway.
Support a local and sustainable small business, instead of big-boxed stores.
Instead of purchasing something new, see if you can buy it second-hand, borrow it from a friend, or rent it.
Feel free to take the pressure off today (if you can), and buy nothing.
Reducing your use of single-use plastic makes a big difference!
Small acts adding up to more Below is from the Carbon Almanac! “We don’t have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.” – Howard Zinn Consider what you buy. Everything we purchase has made an impact on the environment through carbon emissions. Some more than others. Is your item available second-hand?Our actions matter. We can make a difference before it’s too late. Small actions when coordinated with others can lead to systemic change.What are things you can do?Get engaged in your local government. Listen to a meeting, reach out to your representative, sign a petition. Local environmental policies have a direct impact on our lives and our voices can make a difference.Involve your community. Bring people together to enjoy conversations and spark ideas on what actions to take. Consider what your buy. Everything we purchase has made an impact on the environment through carbon emissions. Some more than others. Is your item available second-hand?Our actions matter. We can make a difference before it’s too late.
I make zero waste a game to waste as little as I can.
Our landfills are overflowing, and we just keep purchasing junk and many things we can live without. Consumerism contributes to global warming as do our landfills and burning of trash. We must cut back, maybe not to total zero waste, but creating less waste overall.
Zero waste is not easy, but it is possible. Reducing our waste forces a new look to what we buy. Reducing purchases makes us pay attention to what we buy. Do we really need all the junk we purchase?
March 30 is the UN’s International Day of Zero Waste. This year’s focus is on reducing waste in the fashion industry and helping to advance circular solutions. We have a choice how we spend our dollars, and spending our money on good long lasting products should be a priority. Many items are expensive right now and I bet you can monitor and adjust to be happy with what you already have.
Avoid the fashion fads. Do you really want someone else telling you what to buy and wear. Be your own person create your own look! If your truly want to live on a planet with clean air and clean water we need to cut back! “We still have the ability to stop the worst from happening to our planet. The power to do this is in our hands—we just need to use it.” Katherine Hayhoe
We just need to get in the habit of reusing and fixing what we have. Most of us have closets full of clothes we barely use. Shop your closet and create a new outfit with the clothes you have. Be creative
Many say to me, “But it was so cheap!” No, it’s not cheap with the harm it does to our planet! Manufacturing, shipping, and disposal takes lots of time and energy. Most of it not healthy for anyone.
How can you help to reduce your addiction to fast fashion clothing? Some ideas:
Shop your own closet, or the closet of a friend or relative.
Purchase secondhand. Some secondhand stores even have personal shoppers for you to use.
Buy quality over quantity
Mend clothes rather than throwing them away
Intentionally select the brands you purchase from and learn about their sustainability practices
Make a decision you didn’t need this item after all
The world is facing a trash crisis a climate crisis and a plastic crisis and they are all related to our overconsumption.
So few people connect the climate crisis to the purchases they make. Overconsumption is harmful to our air, to our water and to our health. Landfills and incinerators harm our health. We need to stop competing to be just like everyone else. When we shop purchase items that are of high quality and items that will last a long time. None of us need more junk!
Instead of a season of overconsumption and waste, make it a season of friendship, love and community. That doesn’t mean buy me a gift!
Whether it’s choosing to shop secondhand rather than buy new or simply pausing before you hit the checkout button, we can all rethink the way we consume.
Unsubscribe from sales communication and unfollow brands on social media: We all get those pesky marketing emails, physical mail, and texts, not to mention an onslaught of social media sales messaging, around the holidays. We encourage you to ditch the noise – join over 2 million people who did here. Catalog Choice is a free, online service that will help you save trees, prevent fraud, and fight junk mail. What’s not to love?
The holiday season doesn’t have to be about more Stuff. Together, we can turn the tide against corporate-driven overconsumption and reclaim the real joy of the holiday season.
Buy Nothing! It isn’t hard to get caught up in the hectic holidays and craze of overconsumption. Shopping til you drop is not what this time of year is really about.
We have a worldwide trash crisis, and we don’t need to be purchasing more junk to end up in landfills or garbage burners. All this consumption contributes to our climate crisis, more air pollution and more water pollution. When you shop purchase quality items that will last, always bring your own reusable shopping bags, and reduce your plastic packaging.
Bring your reusable bags and reduce your plastic packaging.
Below is from the Story of Stuff Team:
Black Friday is an annual heavily-advertised mega shopping day with the goal of convincing you to buy as much as possible. But every product you buy has an environmental and labor cost, from long before it hits store shelves to long after you toss it in the bin.
Shopping til you drop is not what this time of year is really about. This holiday season, we’re encouraging everyone to buy less, buy better or buy nothing. Let’s focus less on stuff and more on joy!
Handy tip: unsubscribe from brand emails to simplify your life. And use Catalog Choice to opt-out of junk mail and unwanted catalogs.
We want to get back to the original joy of the season. Here are some meaningful things we can spend our time and money on:
Do something you have been meaning to do for a long time, and have fun!
Go for a walk or read that book you’ve been meaning to start
Write personalized holiday messages for those closest to you
If you are buying gifts, shop secondhand or support small businesses
Invite loved ones over for a home-cooked meal and games
Try an experience: check out a new restaurant, movie or concert with friends
Donate to or volunteer for a cause you care about
Participate in a community exchange like your local Buy Nothing Group
Write a thank you note or a note of gratitude to someone.
The fourth Saturday in October is a day to make a difference.
Today on Make a Difference Day spread kindness and compassion. Take time to smile and be friendly to everyone you have contact with. Kindness creates a ripple that keeps on multiplying! Smile, listen and radiate kindness!
Also, be kind to the Earth. This letter to the editor might give you some ideas:
Thrown away but still there
As a kindred spirit in garbage collection, I both share Ron Currie Jr.’s small sense of accomplishment and often much greater sense of frustration with the vast amounts of garbage we continue to produce and casually discard (“The soothing futility of picking up trash,”StarTribune.com, Oct. 25).
“Out of sight, out of mind” keeps us oblivious to the waste we produce. As someone once encouraged me to question, when I throw something away, where is away? If we all had to dispose of our trash in our yards, might we become more conscientious of our purchasing decisions?
This week, please become conscious of buying less and using less plastic. Get outside and notice the beauty of spring. I saw my first butterflies, and the migrating birds are on their way! Happy Earth Day!
Mourning Cloak, often the first butterfly to appear
Refill your own containers in the bulk section of food co-ops.
Reduce your plastic consumption!
“Zero-waste initiatives can foster sound waste management and minimize and prevent waste. This contributes to reducing pollution, mitigating the climate crisis, conserving biodiversity, enhancing food security and improving human health. The International Day of Zero Waste aims to promote sustainable consumption and production patterns and raise awareness about how zero-waste initiatives contribute to the advancement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Humanity generates an estimated 2.24 billion tons of municipal solid waste annually, of which only 55 per cent is managed in controlled facilities. By 2050, this could rise to 3.88 billion tons per year. The waste sector is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in urban settings and biodiversity loss. Around 931 million tons of food is wasted each year, and up to 37 million tons of plastic waste is expected to enter the ocean annually by 2040.
The United Nations General Assembly formally recognized the importance of zero-waste initiatives and proclaimed 30 March as the International Day of Zero Waste, to be observed annually beginning in 2023.
Zero-waste initiatives can foster sound waste management and minimize and prevent waste. This contributes to reducing pollution, mitigating the climate crisis, conserving biodiversity, enhancing food security and improving human health.
The United Nations Environment Programme and UN-Habitat will facilitate the observance of the Day. All Member States, organizations of the United Nations system and relevant stakeholders are encouraged to implement zero-waste initiatives at local, regional, subnational and national levels.” The United Nations
Use your power as a consumer to create a better world!
Today is Buy Nothing Day, it is a day to turn our back on the awful obsession with consumerism we have in the United States. The things we purchase put stress on all our resources, water, air, time, energy, and landfills. All the stuff we buy contributes to the climate crisis! Do you really need more junk? Give thanks for what you have and all the people in your life. Be grateful for our beautiful planet, and for all you have. Instead of shopping spend your day outdoors or spend time doing something creative. Instead of shopping for happiness take deep breaths and do something you love. All the state parks in my state are free today, and I’m off for a long walk!
From Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day, household waste increases by more than 25%. Added food waste, shopping bags, packaging, wrapping paper, bows and ribbons all adds up to an additional 1 million tons a week to our landfills. (Source: EPA)
A consumer is powerful. The choices we make, and what we purchase changes marketing and products, and as consumers we can make a big difference by the choices we make. These choices can make a positive change on the environment creating a more sustainable world.
Heighten your awareness of packaging and waste, choosing products with minimal or no wasteful plastic packaging.
Always shop with reusable bags.
Never purchase products with glitter or Styrofoam. They can’t be recycled and are harmful to wildlife.
Shop reuse stores. Some of my favorite clothes and items come from consignment stores.
Shop bulk items.
Buying in bulk is a good way to manage food waste, and plastic waste. Bring your own bags or containers.
Shop retailers that pay living wages and are local over big box stores.
Buy nothing and reuse what you have!
Purchase items that will last instead of cheap junk.
Avoid all single-use plastic
Make your own choices and be creative, don’t be owned by corporations like Apple, Target, Amazon etc.
Buying in bulk is a good way to manage food waste, and plastic waste. Bring your own bags or containers. 
Health4earth 