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A shopping sabbatical, ringing out the new

After a year of not buying anything new, an environmentally conscious group in San Francisco looks back

SAN FRANCISCO: It began, as grand ideas often do, over dinner — risotto, artisan cheese and wine. What would it be like, 10 environmentally conscious friends wondered as they discussed the state of the planet, to go a year without buying anything new?

Twelve months later, the results from their experiment in anti-consumption for 2006 are in: Staying 100 per cent true to the goal proved both harder and easier than those who signed on expected.

And while broken vacuum cleaners and malfunctioning cell phones posed some challenges, some of the group's original members say the self-imposed shopping sabbatical was so liberating that they have resolved to do it for another year.

"It started in a light-hearted way, but it is very serious," said John Perry, 42, a father of two who works for a Silicon Valley technology company. "It is about being aware of the excesses of consumer culture and the fact we are drawing down our resources and making people miserable around the world."

The pledge they half-jokingly named The Compact, after the Mayflower pilgrims, spread to other cities through the Internet and an appearance on the `Today' show.

As it turned out, The Compact was modest as far as economic boycotts go. Several cities in the U.S. and Europe have communities of "freegans," people whose contempt for consumerism is so complete they eat food foraged from Dumpsters whenever possible, train-hop and sleep in abandoned buildings as a matter of principle.

The San Francisco group, by contrast, exempted food, essential toiletries such as toothpaste and shampoo, underwear and other purchases that fell under the categories of health and safety from their pledge.

But perhaps because its members included middle-class professionals who could afford to shop recreationally, their cause caught on. Nearly 3,000 people have joined a user group Mr. Perry set up on Yahoo so participants could swap goods and tips.

Besides thrift stores and garage sales, participants found a wealth of free or previously owned merchandise in online classifieds and sites where people post stuff they want to get rid of, such as www.freecycle.org and www.garbagescout.com.

After going through an initial period of retail withdrawal, discovering just how easy it was to score pretty much anything with a little time and effort was an eye-opener, according to participants. — AP

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