Buy Nothing NEW, for all of 2006

Wow, Buy Nothing Day, for a whole YEAR! The SF Chronicle has an article on The Compact:

About 50 teachers, engineers, executives and other professionals in the Bay Area have made a vow to not buy anything new in 2006 -- except food, health and safety items and underwear.

"We're people for whom recycling is no longer enough," said one of the members of the fledgling movement, John Perry, who works in marketing at a high-tech company. "We're trying to get off the first-market consumerism grid, because consumer culture is destroying the world."

They call themselves the Compact. They have a blog, a Yahoo group and monthly meetings to reaffirm their commitment to the rule, which is to never buy anything new. "I didn't buy a pair of shoes today," said Compacter Shawn Rosenmoss, an engineer and a San Francisco resident of the Bernal Heights neighborhood. "They were basically a $300 pair of clodhoppers. But they were really nice and really comfortable, and I haven't bought new shoes for a while. But I didn't buy them. That's a big part of the Compact -- we show that we're not powerless over our purchasing."

In SF there are so many well-run thrift stores which carry nice clothes in good condition. Personally, I haven't purchased used shoes yet, but as far as clothes, I've been cherry picking great items from local thrift stores for years. Is this a precursor for a US-based Mitumba industry :-)

The US economy in particular, depends heavily on consumer spending, so if this movement grows, there might be macro-economic implications. Of course, it takes serious commitment to quit cold turkey, and completely. As Buddhists will point out, perhaps there is a Middle Way between mindless consumerism, and complete non-consumption. Then again, the Compact members are having fun and building friendships:

"Compacters can get as much as they want from thrift shops, Craigslist, freecycle.org, eBay and flea markets, as long as the items are secondhand. And when they're in doubt, they turn to their fellow Compacters for guidance.

"We had a little crisis when Matt and Sarah had to replace their shower curtain liner and we said no," said Perry, who lives in Bernal Heights. "But we put the word out and someone found one for them. It's like the Amish -- we help each other out. We raise a barn every week."

... One especially appealing aspect of the Compact is its social component, members say. Fellow Compacters offer advice, moral support, help locating needed items and partners for thrift-store runs."

In a previous post, I argued that Mindful Spending can nurture companies that take the triple bottom line approach: profitability, sustainability, and social justice. By channeling a small portion of our collective purchase power, we could be helping jumpstart companies and industries we can all be proud of.