Bought no new things yesterday or today.
Tomorrow is the great glebe garage sale. Under ordinary circumstances, this is an amazing event, one of the best of the year. But under our no-new-things circumstances we are looking more forward to it than ever before. And so I have to go to sleep early in anticipation of our entire neighbourhood selling great used things (no new things! or at least hardly any) starting at 7 tomorrow morning!
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I'd like to ask - what's *so* different about not buying something *new* (vs. used, eg. at the GGGS). If I understand it correctly, some part of the argument is: *new* consumes new resources, *old* (previously used) recycles.
ReplyDeleteBut, if you're taking something old out of circulation surely you're encouraging the consumption of something new by *someone else*. Buying an old leather jacket might not be directly implicated in the death of a cow, but by taking out of the market (and assuming a fixed demand) you're contributing (to some degree) to the consumption of a new leather jacket somewhere else, no?
Shouldn't the guiding principle be a little more general, like "treading lightly on the earth"? That could accommodate the consumption of "new" in situations where that is, on balance, better (e.g. a new electric car vs. a second-hand gas guzzler.)