The Compact: Buy Nothing New for a Year (or Two)
by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA 
on 12.22.06
The small San Francisco cooperative that calls themselves "The Compact" (we first covered them ten months ago), who pledged not to buy anything new (almost) for an entire year has followed their mantra for 356 days. The only new products allowed by The Compact are food and bare necessities for health and safety -- things like toilet paper, brake fluid & underwear -- in their effort to go without buying anything new; everything else comes from TreeHugger faves like FreeCycle, Craigslist, thrift stores and even dumpsters, and their idea is making big waves. Publications from Yoga Times to Martha Stewart's Body + Soul to the London Times picked up on the story, and even Oprah's producers called. Interestingly, all the media has caused a bit of a backlash against the movement. "I think it upsets people because it seems like we're making a value judgment about them," says Shawn Rosenmoss, an environmental engineer and original Compactor, who has two children. "When we're simply trying to bring less...into our house." Still, the group has attracted 1,800 people to their Yahoo! group and has spawned SubCompact cells operating across the country. The group has found it enlightening enough to extend the pledge another year. "We didn't do this to save the world. We did this to improve the quality of our own lives," says John Perry, another original Compactor; said like that, it's easy to see why they don't want to stop. ::The Compact Yahoo! Group, ::Compact blog via ::Washington Post
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My brother had a gang years ago called "the Deprivationists". This was when he was 'sugar-vegan'.
Yeah, a lot of Americans will see this and think that they are some kind of hippie, communist pinkos because by not buying anything, they are not supporting the economy. When Bush had his press thing the other day, he said "Americans should go shopping, buy more."
The Compact folks do buy stuff, they just buy used for everything except consumables. Buying used actually supports the economy quite well, since it puts money in the pockets of everyone who is willing to take the time to sell their unwanted things.
The need for new products could never go away completely, so there's no need to fear an economic crash even if everyone in the world chose to follow the Compact's philosophy. We all still need some things, especially consumables. Plus, the economy can easily be restructured around making more durable products and repairing them so that they can be used for a long time, as it used to be in the previous centuries.
I've lived this way mostly for most of my adult life. The only time I buy new non-consumable things is when I have a deadline and don't see any other way to do what I need to do. (for example, I just broke down and bought a new silkscreen squeegee the other day after realizing that I couldn't find my old one, discovering that junk mail fake credit cards work terribly as squeegees for silkscreening, and knowing that I only had a couple of days left to make all my Solstice gifts for people.)
Otherwise, given a bit of time, I find that I can almost always borrow, buy used, or get for free what I need. Though it definitely helps to have a great group of friends who share this sort of philosophy and also to live in an urban area.
The only caveat is that most used things get put on the market when someone buys a new item. If everyone bought used, pretty soon nothing would work.
People do sometimes get new things to replace old, and that's fine, since there are always people who are happy with used things. Plus there are also lots of things that people buy new that they only need for a while, like school books, kid's stuff, tools for a one time task, and so on. And then there's the stuff that we just get tired or bored of, like games, clothes, gizmos, and hobby supplies.
That's why a philosophy like The Compact's works so well. Everyone wins when there are people who appreciate used goods. I'll also note that pretty much everyone buys used things at least occasionally. Even people who can afford to buy lots of new things often choose to buy used, especially when they are called "antiques" or "collectables"...
I want to know how to join the compact I understand the concepts but how do I officially join? Please e-mail me and let me know! betsyrouvas@hotmail.com
Its funny how we never look at the big picture of our own world and think for a moment that we had plundered from our earth's resources so much.
Buying used is good as it helps to keep the economy going and nothing new gets produced. Capitalism is great for us but its ruining our world, just for the sake of keeping the ecnonmy going, we had been producing so much surplus. Now we want to tell everyone we are environmentally committed, are we?
We should look at how we can produce just enough for consumption, profit is admirable but devastating in the long run. There are just too many of us in 1 Earth, we need to find a good way to co-exist here in the next 100 years?
I'm wondering if anyone in the Palo Alto/Menlo Park/Mountain View areas have formed their own "Compact" -- I'd love to write about your experiences for the Palo Alto Weekly. You can reach me at cblitzer@paweekly.com.