Sustainable Living: Shop Local

The Battle of Black Friday Excesses

T

here is a movement to buck the draw of Black Friday, hoping to persuade people to skip the retail binge altogether and choose to go outdoors instead.

Some call it Green Friday (and we, in our area, call it Plaid Friday, see ad, on this page), though it has gained some popularity as a new social media campaign: #OptOutside.

The #OptOutside campaign began four years ago with REI, a Seattle-based outdoor retailer, which decided to close its doors on Black Friday. The concept was to give its employees a paid day off and push its customers to enjoy the outdoors instead of going to the mall or scrolling on their internet browsers (yes, REI even shuts down its internet sales for the day). Now many groups and nonprofits have adopted the campaign, and more and more people are choosing to #OptOutside on Black Friday.

And, this year, during this pandemic, you too can help reduce the waste that has always seemed inevitable this time of year, and stay safe too.

In case you need some inspiration, here are a few suggestions: Geocaching: This modern-day treasure hunt can be done alone or with your own merry band of pirates; all you need is a GPS receiver of some kind, a set of coordinates and maybe some clues, depending on the cache. Of course, instead of hunting for a buried chest, you’re looking for a cache of goodies hidden in an eco-friendly site above ground. To get started with caches near you, a great resource is geocaching.com; the site currently boasts 11,177 caches in New Hampshire. Snow Sports: New Hampshire boasts some great winter activities options, so cold and snowy conditions can’t be an excuse for staying inside. You can hit the slopes, go cross-country skiing, or snowshoe through a forest, to name a few. Cycling: A great way to warm up is to go cycling. As long as it’s not treacherous out with snowy terrain – or if you have some winter or studded tires on your

Show your support for locally owned businesses and wear plaid on Plaid Friday!

bike – going on a bike ride would help you feel good about your environmental impact, but also your caloric intake from Thanksgiving dinner. Hunting: There’s one group of Granite Staters who probably don’t need to be persuaded to go outside: hunters. In New Hampshire on Black Friday, it is open hunting season for deer, pheasant, turkey and waterfowl. Because it is near the beginning of deer season, that is typically the type of hunting that happens during and after Thanksgiving. Shooting Photos: If hunting is not your thing, you can shoot pictures instead. Take a walk or visit a park and take some photographs. This simple act will help you to focus on the many beautiful aspects of the outdoors in our region, and afterward, you can submit your photos to the #ThisIsNH story map online! And tag your photos with #OptOutside.

This article is courtesy of Greenworks, a newsletter put out by the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services.

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