Black Friday has become a highly anticipated date in many households, a chance to tick off items off your wish lists and especially Christmas lists. The buzz around Black Friday has grown from a single day to a month-long ‘Black Friday Feeling’; encouraging more purchases but also proposing less festive consequences for waste and consumerism. The pressure to buy unnecessary items has resulted in dire consequences for the environment and created mass consumerism, elevating the amount purchased in anticipation of the holiday season.
Originally the term ‘Black Friday’ was used in reference to the chaos that ensued the day after Thanksgiving in Philadelphia. The term was then adopted by businesses and media to begin the holiday season with shopping and great discounts on popular items. This creates a clear advantage for retailers as it allows them to clear storage from the year while also boosting sales, however paired with Cyber Monday, this huge shopping frenzy has resulted in huge more amounts of greenhouse gasses due to deliveries and improper disposal of items. A study in 2019, by the University of Leeds, has shown that 80% of Black Friday purchases end up in landfill, are incinerated, or are recycled poorly.
The pressure doesn’t just stop at the environment, consumers feel it too. I asked Emilie Dalle whether Black Friday is helpful to her, and she said, ‘I think that Black Friday is helpful to people who might not be able to normally afford higher priced items, however, I find that it’s generally a money-making scheme for companies to get the greatest profit possible from larger yields of sale’. Emilie isn’t alone in this feeling as other consumers like Fara Shariff think “it isn’t very helpful to me, in fact, it’s the opposite, I feel that I need to buy unnecessary items just because they’re on sale”. Although Black Friday is immensely popular it seems its online counterpart ‘Cyber Monday’ is even more favoured and accessible. I asked Sara Sierra if she shopped more on Wimbledon Highstreet for Black Friday or online and she told me, ‘I definitely shop online more, it’s just easier, I think most people would agree’.
Although that Black Friday Feeling may be contagious, it would be helpful for the planet and our pockets if we thought more consciously about our Black Friday purchases especially when buying online. Instead, during this period small businesses could use help, as many can’t compete with the huge sales that big companies can afford.
