Month: October 2020

We’re ever grateful for the ongoing media support for Buy Nothing New Month.

Thanks Money Mag for helping us spread the word about the ‘why’ and ‘how to’ of Buy Nothing New Month in a Covid world.

Check out how to get ‘stuff’, save money, stimulate the economy and repair our earth without the waste.

moneymag.com.au/buy-nothing-new-pandemic

And thanks to ABC News Breakie for giving us a reason to wash our hair for the first time in about 6 months:

youtube.com/watch?v=FAdKBG8AJRw&t=7s

Thanks Melissa Singer, Fashion Editor of Sydney Morning Herald for spreading the word on how we can update our spring wardrobes without buying anything new.

smh.com.au/lifestyle/fashion/how-to-update-your-spring-wardrobe-without-buying-anything-new-20201002-p561gs.html

As we near the end of Buy Nothing New Month we’d love to hear from you if you have any feedback.

We’d love to hear your experience, what you found easy, what you found tricky.

What you’d like to hear more about from us.

And remember. It’s Buy Nothing New Month. We never said which month!

Peeps can do this anytime.

Many choose to do it in December and have a wrapper free/stress free Buy Nothing New Christmas.

This can be a bigger challenge to help people move beyond ‘presents’ to ‘presence’ at Christmas. But a waste-free world is a gift worth aiming for.

The Buy Nothing New Month Crew

A circular economy designs out waste and pollution, keeping products and materials in use (circular) and regenerating natural systems.

In the circular economy we are working towards, reuse and regeneration are key.

In our current system of turning natural wealth into cash, where 91% of plastic waste produced never gets recycled, waste is almost unavoidable…

We’re excited about the circular economy and Doughnut Economics (Kate Raworth of Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute) and the better future they’re mapping out.

Our current economies need to grow, whether or not they make us thrive.

Doughnut economics shows how countries, cities, people and out planet can thrive without the endless need for growth.

Amsterdam is engaging Doughnut Economics to carve their path out of the Covid pandemic. bit.ly/2S0smf3

Every time we refuse stuff we don’t need, be it clothes, stuff we can buy second hand, packaging etc we are part of re-building a better world.

Thanks for laying good tracks.

The Buy Nothing New Month Crew

Ordering second hand stuff online from the couch can save you time and money, promote the circular economy and help repair our planet. But it can come wrapped in plastic.

We put a loving request to all online vendors “please avoid or use as little wrapping as possible.”

This reduces our part in the plastic problem.

The Buy Nothing New Month Crew

If you haven’t gotten into FBMP (Facebook Market Place) WHOOOAH.

Get ready for a new, reasonably healthy addiction.

To escape Covid dark times, we would disappear into FBMP looking for free plants, cheap plants anything within 5kms. (For those outside of Melb or Victoria, for what seems like 40 years, we’ve been confined to moving within 5kms of home.)

But FBMP is like the best department store of plants, garden furniture, clothes, household stuff.

With the charity stores being closed to Covid, FBMP has fed our need for a fix.

The massive online market for second hand stuff gives every reason to put second hand first.

eBay is our favourite for top quality clothing. But there’s Depop, vestiairecollective The Real Real.

Here’s a pretty good run down.

brittslist.com.au/article/online-stores-for-second-hand-clothing

The Buy Nothing New Month Crew

Dear Tribe, can we blame Covid for us sending the wrong email just now?

Oh how nice to go back to 2016…like a time machine…what would we do differently?

For the Victorians, WELL DONE! We’re at 2 new Covid cases.

Happy Friday.

And now for the right email…

With Italy’s Covid shutdown providing time to rethink and reset, fashion icon Giorgio Armani Says Fashion Needs To “Do Less And Do It Better” and stop “churning out far too much ill-conceived product that nobody needs.”

“No more winter overcoats being offered in July, or linen dresses in January. Let’s get back in step with nature.”

We really love the bit about “…let’s get back in step with nature…”

Nice one Giorgio.

The Buy Nothing New Month Crew

We try to keep it light.

Sometimes we’re even very, very funny.

Othertimes, there is no sugar coating the s*itstorm of inequality in the cheap fast-fashion industry.

Fast fashion inst just the second biggest polluter in the world, it also uses the cheap and slave-labour of the poor, to make the rich richer.

At the start of Covid, some of the world’s biggest fast fashion brands were refusing to honor their financial obligations to Bangladeshi factories for orders that were completed, but couldn’t ship due to the virus.

Some of the richest in the world were forcing the poorest in the world to wear what should have been their financial burden. Unfair much?

Enter the power of the hashtag.

Advocacy nonprofit group Remake created #PayUp campaign exposing the brands cancelling and or not paying for their orders, leaving a pile of crap clothes and financial devastation for the Bangladeshi workers who had already fulfilled their side of the deal.

#payup saw billions owed being rightly paid to the Bangladeshi workers.

Remake’s ongoing mission is to see the fashion industry commit to liveable wages and social protections for garment makers so that mostly (young) women who make our clothes get paid fairly for their valuable work.

How we can create a fair world:

1: Understanding people that make cheap fast fashion are usually working in unsafe conditions and getting ripped off so we can have ten cheap t-shirts in all different colours.

2: Do a little research and buy from companies with ethical supply chains.

3: Buy second hand first at charities everywhere possible. This helps charities help those who need support.

4: Always take the option to spend cash where it helps, not harms and think about the impact of our spending.

The Buy Nothing New Month Crew