From my good friends at Octopus Books:
In the spirit of Buy Nothing Day we're celebrating as we do every year by closing the store. Buy Nothing Day is held each year on the first day after American Thanksgiving, the day that has traditionally been known as the busiest shopping day of the year in the United States. The campaign was started by Adbusters in 1992 and questions the rampant consumerism associated with the Christmas shopping frenzy. It is an exercise of consumer awareness that asks shoppers to think about what they buy, from whom and how they often spend without thinking about the implications.
Buy Nothing Day challenges consumers to refrain from shopping and encourages everyone to bring their lunch to work, stay away from the malls and shops and to spend the day thinking about how consumerism has become entrenched in our lives. It gives us pause to think about our media culture and the way it fuels our consumption. It is a day which provides an opportunity for us all to consider the reality of economic disparity between the overdeveloped North and the underdeveloped South, and the devasting affects of overconsumption on the environment.
At Octopus we're excited by the opportunity to participate in Buy Nothing Day. We feel strongly that Buy Nothing Day allows us to contribute to the community by providing an occasion for all of us to consider the way we participate in the global economy through our local buying habits. Even at Octopus Books, where we strive to have ethics and to be responsible in our business practices, we still participate in our social habit of over-consumption. Consumers can’t buy unless someone is willing to sell. By closing the store we encourage everyone – especially our customers and ourselves – to seriously consider their own habits of consumption and to spend the day actively thinking about the implications of shopping.
Did You Know??
- that the average North American spends 60 minutes a day watching, reading or listening to advertisments each day.
- that by the time we're 70 we will have spent 3 years watching ads?
- that on average North Americans are exposed to 3000 ads a day?
- that advertisers spend $370 a year on each Canadian and three times that amount on each American?
The richest fifth of the world
- consume 45% of all meat and fish, the poorest fifth 5%
- consume 58% of total energy, the poorest fifth less than 4%
- have 74% of all telephone lines, the poorest fifth 1.5%
- consume 84% of all paper, the poorest fifth 1.1%
- own 87% of the world's vehicles, the poorst fifth less than 1%
Each year
$8 billion is spent on cosmetics in the United States
$11 billion is spent on ice cream in Europe
$12 billion is spent on perfume in Europe and the United States
$50 billion is spent on cigarettes in Europe
$400 billion is spent on narcotic drugs in the world
$780 billion is spent on the military in the world
According to the UN, ensuring universal access to basic social services in all
developing countries would cost (per year):
$6 billion for basic education
$9 billion for water and sanitation
$12 billion for reproductive health for women
$13 billion for basic health and nutrition
"...each Canadian consumes 16-20 times as much as a person in India or China and 60-70 times more than someone in Bangladesh. Thus we 1.1 billion in industrialized nations have the same ecological impact as 17 billion to 77 billion Third World People." - David Suzuki
FOR 1 OUT OF 6 PEOPLE IN THE WORLD EVERYDAY IS BUY NOTHING DAY.
Partcipate by not participating. Bring a thermos of coffee with you in the morning, brown bag your lunch, go to the library or the park, swap clothes with friends, start planning homemade Christmas gifts...
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