In the 90s the idea of a sustainable world began to take place in our society; pollution and resources wasting were on the top of human priorities. So many people started to protest against consumerism, for a better world clean and equal. One of these people is a Canadian artist Ted Dave who had an original idea in September of 1992: “Buy Nothing Day”. It is celebrated on the Friday after American Thanksgiving (the day also infamously known as ‘Black Friday’).This year,all over the world it occurs on 27th november. It is considered as a day for society to assess the overconsumption problem. Buy Nothing Day is a day of protest in which participants pledge to buy nothing for 24 hours to raise awareness of the negative environmental, social, and political consequences of overconsumption. The aim of this project is to encourage people to think about how much money they’re needlessly spending.  It  also helps consumers control the urge to buy things compulsively and spend wisely. Finally, it shows that your personal happiness doesn’t revolve around material objects.

We can recognize five main negative aspects of consumerism, including:

  • Causes more pollution.
  • A major contributor to resource depletion.
  • Leads companies to develop low quality products.
  • Promotes poor labor standards and pay for workers.
  • Does not necessarily lead to increased happiness beyond a certain point.

 

For these reasons every Black Friday ( this is the opposite of the Buy Nothing Day) activists stand in line at shopping malls and offer to cut up credit cards for people who are wasting money on things they don’t need. In my opinion we have to change our behaviours because we are following a path which is going to lead to a close road; so I am going to give my little contribution to save the world and above all to save ourselves. Not only “Buy Nothing Day but buy less everyday”. If we really want to change the things we have to act every day with a more responsible behaviour. So,  take what we like without excess.We would respect the world and ourselves.