Buy Nothing Day in Canada

An annual "Buy Nothing Day" has been held in Canada since 1992. It was created to increase the awareness of excessive consumerism. Americans have become predisposed to buying. We are all consumers. We can now buy products on the internet, making almost everything virtually possible to consumption. If "Buy Nothing Day" commenced, it would help people become aware of the degeneration of our ecosystem, emulate our consumption dependencies, and increase awareness of the over consumption that we face today.

Everything we buy has a price tag, and everything bought drains our natural resources. Prominently, the consumption of plastic and trees. The world's natural resource of oil is depleting in larger rates every year. Not only are we consuming too much oil-based products, but also they are not biodegradable on a practical and sufficient scale. The problem lies within us. We are also highly dependent on tree-based products; paper is needed for hundreds of miscellaneous purposes. The more we use paper, the more trees have to be extracted and processed, but there is nothing humans can do to stop the production on a whole scale, we are just too invested. A solution that could be put into place arises from the world of technology. Although technology itself requires many of the same resources, it can eliminate the use and cutting down of trees, another example being our consumption of food from McDonald's. McDonald's are the highest buyers and users of beef-related and poultry related products, mostly used in their production of their burgers. Their attempt to combat supply and demand has forced their influential sphere upon the tropical rain forest. McDonalds has been clearing out large sections of the rain forests to raise more cattle. Although they are profiting from the business, they are also destroying the "Lungs of the World."

America is a nation full of consumers. We constantly buy from others, and the government