Green Europe: Waste and recycling in Budapest
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“As a day for society to examine the issue of over-consumption”, Buy Nothing Day has become one of the biggest campaigns to promote anti-consuming way of thinking all over the world, since its foundation in 1992 by an artist from Vancouver.
Also known as Black Friday, BND has been celebrated on the Friday immediately following one of the biggest shopping days in the US, Thanksgiving Day, while in Europe it is held on the last days of November. While broadcast media traditionally boycotts BND, a video-reporter of cafebabel.com was in Budapest last November for the and has covered the event, taking place on one of the town’s biggest crossroads, the Blaha Lujza Square, just under the huge commercials in neon-lights, where the local ‘green’ activists in the best tradition of carnivals protested against hyper-consuming and waste producing.
Throughout the last two decades, Buy Nothing Day has evolved into similar activities and movements, like Buy Nothing Christmas, Cyber Monday (created by companies to persuade people to shop online, on the Monday right after BND), Advent Conspiracy (characterized by its four founding principles: Worship Fully, Spend Less, Give More, Love All), and very expectedly – Steal Something Day.