Activist groups in Malta are urging people to have an ‘Alternative Black Friday’ this year as companies such as clothing brands, hotels and airlines prepare to host one-day flash sales.
Organisations such as Fashion Revolution and Friends of the Earth Malta say global discount days – such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday – are extremely bad for the environment and should be avoided.
Instead, they are asking people to recycle or mend an item they already own, donate to charity, or simply abstain from shopping at all.
Fashion Revolution even offers a list of tailors and cobblers around the islands on their website to help people get started.
Tamara Fenech, country coordinator of Fashion Revolution Malta, said: “With all the discounts being offered, it’s no wonder that people get excited and jump on the bandwagon.
“But when we stop and consider the social and environmental impact of buying something with a measly price tag – it simply doesn’t add up. And while we might get a discount now, we’ll be paying for it when it comes to climate change in the long-run.”
Fashion Revolution was set up in 2013 in response to the deaths of 1,134 workers at Rana Plaza, a clothing factory in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka. Since then it has gone from a UK-based charity to having co-ordinators in more than 80 countries, including Malta.
As well as educating consumers, it targets big brands, such as H&M and Zara, and asks questions about who is making their clothes and how much these workers are getting paid.
Ms Fenech said that despite a slight shift in attitude towards consumption, people seem to lose all reason when it comes to the hyper-marketing that surrounds days like Black Friday.
The problem with any sale is that we tend to buy things that we do not need
“Consumers tend to disconnect the wider problems when they are sold the idea of ‘bargains’,” she said.
“But the problem with any sale is that we tend to buy things that we do not need and in the end the item just ends up more as waste in our house or in landfill. This way of consuming makes us believe that we have all the resources in the world. But we don’t”
The idea of recycling or taking something to be mended is also being promoted by Friends of the Earth Malta ahead of Black Friday and the lead up to Christmas.
Director Martin Galea De Giovanni said: “We’ll be marking the day with a twist and asking people to participate in ‘Buy Nothing Day – an International Day of Protest Against Consumerism’ – whereby we invite people to abstain from spending for 24 hours.
“For the past two years, we’ve also organised Repair Cafe events whereby people who have damaged objects meet others who know how to fix them.”
He added: “In December we’ll also be organising a ‘Zero Waste Christmas’ event – as we want to make it a greener holiday, so we’ll be asking people to be crafty and thrifty and give things a new life.
“We’ll be organising informal events and workshops and are encouraging people to contribute skills and knowledge so that we all learn from each other.”