When Charnetta Barnes first heard the concept, she thought it seemed too good to believe.
The 32-year-old mother of four was in the midst of moving from one part of the District to another when a friend mentioned a Facebook group where people were giving away everything from plants to pianos. A post might ask to borrow a ladder or offer leftovers from a holiday dinner.
She signed up for the Buy Nothing group in her neighborhood, Petworth, and soon found the couch, bedroom furniture and kitchen supplies she couldn’t afford, but really couldn’t do without. And she went back — “basically, every time I needed something” — embracing an ethos that’s both novel and old-world: humans sharing what they have, getting what they need and letting go of what they don’t.
At a time when many Americans are scrambling to snap up the perfect toy or gadget on their holiday shopping lists, Barnes is part of a growing movement built on a simple premise: Buy nothing.
ADVERTISING
What started in 2013 as a hyperlocal network of “circular gift economies” in Bainbridge Island, Wash., has ballooned into a constellation of Buy Nothing groups with 4.3 million members in 44 countries. Members can request or offer any item or service as long as it’s legal; however buying, selling and bartering are prohibited. The groups are well-represented on social media, particularly Facebook, Reddit and Nextdoor. The Buy Nothing app, launched on Black Friday, has been downloaded more than 125,000 times.
For devotees, Buy Nothing is less a statement about consumerism than an antidote to some of the social ills and financial pressures of the moment. It’s a way to spend less at a time when inflation is near a 40-year high. It’s a means of reducing waste in one of the world’s most wasteful countries. And it’s a form of connection during a pandemic that has left many wrestling with isolation.
Prices climbed 6.8% in November compared with last year, largest rise in nearly four decades, as inflation spreads through economy
In member exchanges, the stories pile up as would-be recipients vie for desired items, said Liesl Clark, 55, one of Buy Nothing’s co-founders. Deciding who gets what rests solely with the donor, whose offering might hold sentimental value or simply be something that just needs to go.
Everyone benefits by these interactions, Clark said, as connections, even friendships, are formed.
“This isolation has been going on for too long, and now we are coming out of that and recognizing that we can come to know each other through our stuff and our talents,” Clark said. “We can joyfully share our stuff and even laugh about it.”
“Nothing was wasted,” she said.
It was a sensibility that helped shape her views on consumerism and give rise to the Buy Nothing Project, the movement she co-founded with Rebecca Rockefeller with a focus on reducing plastics waste.
But its mission is as much about promoting the idea of abundance as it is about buying less, Clark said.
“There’s so much out there,” Clark said, from raw materials like garden vegetables to manufactured goods that are otherwise destined for a landfill or dropped off anonymously at Goodwill. She recently found a home for some cottonwood leaves from her yard.
The first spark came in the mid-2000s when Clark, a documentary filmmaker, and a team of scientists traveled to remote cliff caves on the border of Tibet and Nepal, which were among the last places on the planet to be settled by humans. No one had been there for centuries, she said, but the artifacts they found showed how crucial communal materials are to human survival.
“This is something that humans have always been doing, this sort of sharing of materials that we have at our fingertips and caring for each other in more of a communal way,” Clark said.
But over time, consumption — the act of acquiring, using and disposing of goods and services — replaced avenues built on meeting universal human needs, according to Daniel Fischer, associate professor for consumer communication and sustainability at Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands.
“We identify as consumers and think of consumption as a somewhat ‘natural’ way of satisfying our needs,” Fischer told The Washington Post in an email. “It has become our second skin and we often just practice it without reflecting on it.”
People buying stuff is the backbone of the U.S. economy. Consumer spending powers about 70 percent of gross domestic product, and retail numbers and consumer confidence are tracked breathlessly as a barometer of economic health. On Cyber Monday — generally the biggest online sales event of the year — consumers spent $12 million every minute, according to Adobe Analytics.
The blip of dopamine that comes from making an impulse purchase has a short half-life, but serious consequences. The United States already produces more plastic waste than any other country, according to the National Academy of Sciences, with the average American generating about 287 pounds each year. A 2020 paper published in Nature cautioned that overconsumption and the relentless pursuit of economic growth have fueled an explosive rise in greenhouse gas emissions.
“The challenge of our times,” Fischer said, “is to reimagine and reinvent the good life in a world of ecological constraints.”
Buy Nothing makes the case that it is possible to get not just what you need, but what you want, while cutting back on waste and getting closer to your community.
The 32-year-old mother of four was in the midst of moving from one part of the District to another when a friend mentioned a Facebook group where people were giving away everything from plants to pianos. A post might ask to borrow a ladder or offer leftovers from a holiday dinner.
She signed up for the Buy Nothing group in her neighborhood, Petworth, and soon found the couch, bedroom furniture and kitchen supplies she couldn’t afford, but really couldn’t do without. And she went back — “basically, every time I needed something” — embracing an ethos that’s both novel and old-world: humans sharing what they have, getting what they need and letting go of what they don’t.
At a time when many Americans are scrambling to snap up the perfect toy or gadget on their holiday shopping lists, Barnes is part of a growing movement built on a simple premise: Buy nothing.
ADVERTISING
What started in 2013 as a hyperlocal network of “circular gift economies” in Bainbridge Island, Wash., has ballooned into a constellation of Buy Nothing groups with 4.3 million members in 44 countries. Members can request or offer any item or service as long as it’s legal; however buying, selling and bartering are prohibited. The groups are well-represented on social media, particularly Facebook, Reddit and Nextdoor. The Buy Nothing app, launched on Black Friday, has been downloaded more than 125,000 times.
For devotees, Buy Nothing is less a statement about consumerism than an antidote to some of the social ills and financial pressures of the moment. It’s a way to spend less at a time when inflation is near a 40-year high. It’s a means of reducing waste in one of the world’s most wasteful countries. And it’s a form of connection during a pandemic that has left many wrestling with isolation.
Prices climbed 6.8% in November compared with last year, largest rise in nearly four decades, as inflation spreads through economy
In member exchanges, the stories pile up as would-be recipients vie for desired items, said Liesl Clark, 55, one of Buy Nothing’s co-founders. Deciding who gets what rests solely with the donor, whose offering might hold sentimental value or simply be something that just needs to go.
Everyone benefits by these interactions, Clark said, as connections, even friendships, are formed.
“This isolation has been going on for too long, and now we are coming out of that and recognizing that we can come to know each other through our stuff and our talents,” Clark said. “We can joyfully share our stuff and even laugh about it.”
A message of abundance
Growing up in Massachusetts, Clark says the running joke about the family fridge was that “every cheese was blue cheese.” Her mother, a child of the Depression, would scrape away the mold and they’d eat what could be salvaged.“Nothing was wasted,” she said.
It was a sensibility that helped shape her views on consumerism and give rise to the Buy Nothing Project, the movement she co-founded with Rebecca Rockefeller with a focus on reducing plastics waste.
But its mission is as much about promoting the idea of abundance as it is about buying less, Clark said.
“There’s so much out there,” Clark said, from raw materials like garden vegetables to manufactured goods that are otherwise destined for a landfill or dropped off anonymously at Goodwill. She recently found a home for some cottonwood leaves from her yard.
The first spark came in the mid-2000s when Clark, a documentary filmmaker, and a team of scientists traveled to remote cliff caves on the border of Tibet and Nepal, which were among the last places on the planet to be settled by humans. No one had been there for centuries, she said, but the artifacts they found showed how crucial communal materials are to human survival.
“This is something that humans have always been doing, this sort of sharing of materials that we have at our fingertips and caring for each other in more of a communal way,” Clark said.
But over time, consumption — the act of acquiring, using and disposing of goods and services — replaced avenues built on meeting universal human needs, according to Daniel Fischer, associate professor for consumer communication and sustainability at Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands.
“We identify as consumers and think of consumption as a somewhat ‘natural’ way of satisfying our needs,” Fischer told The Washington Post in an email. “It has become our second skin and we often just practice it without reflecting on it.”
People buying stuff is the backbone of the U.S. economy. Consumer spending powers about 70 percent of gross domestic product, and retail numbers and consumer confidence are tracked breathlessly as a barometer of economic health. On Cyber Monday — generally the biggest online sales event of the year — consumers spent $12 million every minute, according to Adobe Analytics.
The blip of dopamine that comes from making an impulse purchase has a short half-life, but serious consequences. The United States already produces more plastic waste than any other country, according to the National Academy of Sciences, with the average American generating about 287 pounds each year. A 2020 paper published in Nature cautioned that overconsumption and the relentless pursuit of economic growth have fueled an explosive rise in greenhouse gas emissions.
“The challenge of our times,” Fischer said, “is to reimagine and reinvent the good life in a world of ecological constraints.”
Buy Nothing makes the case that it is possible to get not just what you need, but what you want, while cutting back on waste and getting closer to your community.