Down south, they call the day after American Thanksgiving “Black Friday.” It sounds ominous but it’s actually a term retailers and consumers get excited about.

Black Friday is the unofficial start to the Christmas shopping season and one of the most prolific days of the year for retailers. The big stores advertise doorcrashers, line-ups form early in the morning, and many people take the day off from work simply to shop. No joke!

And before you can say thank-goodness-we-don’t-have-that-in-Canada, a simple web search retrieves countless sites that tell us differently.

So if the thought of this consumer madness rubs you the wrong way there is an alternative. You can opt out with Buy Nothing Day this Friday, November 28.

Buy Nothing Day was created by Vancouver artist Ted Dave in 1992, but has found a home with Adbusters (the pros at running anti-consumerism campaigns). Buy Nothing Day activists participate in all kinds of demonstrations and public space events like clothing swaps, credit-card cutting services or empty shopping cart pushing around stores.

Naysayers will tell you Buy Nothing Day is pointless, that the do-gooders will just buy what they want the next day. But alas, they miss the point, and believe me, we at Earth Day Canada know the point very well (Make Every Day Earth Day).

It’s not really about abstaining from consumer culture for one day, but rather re-thinking consumption all year-round.

Have fun buying nothing!

In Toronto, this is the issue that can’t be put to bed.

Must be all that caffeine.

The City of Toronto now says it plans to ban paper coffee cups sold with plastic lids by the end of 2009. Recyclers don’t want mixed paper and plastic because one contaminates the other.

Tim Horton’s, the reigning king of coffee in Canada (colonizing approximately 80% of the national marketplace), is “incredibly dismayed” with the City of Toronto. No surprise that it doesn’t like the idea of a ban. It would be pretty “inconvenient” for them to redesign a cup for the purposes of one city.

But the coffee giant has its own plan. They just announced that they will institute paper cup recycling systems in their stores across Ontario.

Environmentally-sound move? Hmm. Token gesture? More like it. Forgive me if I think Tim Horton’s wants to hang onto that disposable coffee cup with plastic lid combo as long as possible. This from the company who tells its employees to ask you if you want an extra paper cup so you can “roll up the rim to win” even when you bring your own mug.

And really, what good will in-store recycling do? Tim Hortons does not create a coffeehouse experience where you drink your beverage on site, they are all about take-out. i.e. take out of the store to drink and dispose.

Rather than vowing to change the City of Toronto’s plans, I got an idea for you Timmy. How about a “bring your own mug to win” contest? Then we’ll all be winners.

photo by brad pearson