No Buy Day WKSHT

1.
to hit someone with a lot of something, without pausing
2. designed to be thrown away after use
3. a place where rubbish is buried under the ground
4. to appear
5. the practice of buying and owning lots of products
6. the act of spending more money than you should
7. using too much of something
8. someone who uses social media to advertise products to their followers
overspending
to bombard
to spring up
disposable
an influencer
a landfill site
consumerism
overconsumption
Social media, magazines and shop windows bombard people daily with things to buy,
and British consumers are buying more clothes and shoes than ever before. Online
shopping means it is easy for customers to buy without thinking, while major brands
offer such cheap clothes that they can be treated like disposable items – worn two or
three times and then thrown away.
In Britain, the average person spends more than £1,000 on new clothes a year, which is
around four per cent of their income. That might not sound like much, but that figure
hides two far more worrying trends for society and for the environment. First, a lot of that
consumer spending is via credit cards. British people currently owe approximately £670
per adult to credit card companies. That's 66 per cent of the average wardrobe budget.
Also, not only are people spending money they don't have, they're using it to buy things
they don't need. Britain throws away 300,000 tons of clothing a year, most of which goes
into landfill sites.
People might not realise they are part of the disposable clothing problem because they
donate their unwanted clothes to charities. But charity shops can't sell all those
unwanted clothes. 'Fast fashion' goes out of fashion as quickly as it came in and is often
too poor quality to recycle; people don't want to buy it second-hand. Huge quantities end
up being thrown away, and a lot of clothes that charities can't sell are sent abroad,
causing even more economic and environmental problems.
However, a different trend is springing up in opposition to consumerism – the 'buy
nothing' trend. The idea originated in Canada in the early 1990s and then moved to the
US, where it became a rejection of the overspending and overconsumption of Black
Friday and Cyber Monday during Thanksgiving weekend. On Buy Nothing Day people
organise various types of protests and cut up their credit cards. Throughout the year,
Buy Nothing groups organise the exchange and repair of items they already own.
The trend has now reached influencers on social media who usually share posts of
clothing and make-up that they recommend for people to buy. Some YouTube stars now
encourage their viewers not to buy anything at all for periods as long as a year. Two
friends in Canada spent a year working towards buying only food. For the first three
months they learned how to live without buying electrical goods, clothes or things for the
house. For the next stage, they gave up services, for example haircuts, eating out at
restaurants or buying petrol for their cars. In one year, they'd saved $55,000.
The changes they made meant two fewer cars on the roads, a reduction in plastic and
paper packaging and a positive impact on the environment from all the energy saved. If
everyone followed a similar plan, the results would be impressive. But even if you can't
manage a full year without going shopping, you can participate in the anti-consumerist
movement by refusing to buy things you don't need. Buy Nothing groups send a clear
message to companies that people are no longer willing to accept the environmental
and human cost of overconsumption.
1. People buy clothes because they want to throw them away.
2. The writer thinks it is worrying that people spend money on things they do not need.
3. The amount the average Briton owes on credit cards is one third of the amount they
spend on clothes each year.
4. Only a very small proportion of unwanted clothes are thrown away.
5. Charities can find ways to use clothes even if they are not very good quality.
6. Buy Nothing Day is a protest against credit cards.
7. The two friends who did the 'buy nothing' experiment only bought food for 12 months.
8. If everyone followed the Buy Nothing idea, the environment would benefit.
1. People buy clothes because they want to throw them away.

2. The writer thinks it is worrying that people spend money on things they do not need.
3. The amount the average Briton owes on credit cards is one third of the amount they
spend on clothes each year.
4. Only a very small proportion of unwanted clothes are thrown away.
5. Charities can find ways to use clothes even if they are not very good quality.
6. Buy Nothing Day is a protest against credit cards.
7. The two friends who did the 'buy nothing' experiment only bought food for 12 months.
8. If everyone followed the Buy Nothing idea, the environment would benefit.

No Buy Day WKSHT

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1.

to hit someone with a lot of something, without pausing

2. designed to be thrown away after use

3. a place where rubbish is buried under the ground

5. the practice of buying and owning lots of products

6. the act of spending more money than you should

7. using too much of something

8. someone who uses social media to advertise products to their followers

1. People buy clothes because they want to throw them away.

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