Buy-Nothing Day
On Saturday 28 November, the Swapping team in Norway took its first step and celebrated the international Buy-Nothing Day by organising a swapping event.

One of the initiative-takers behind the event, Heidi Smith, says: "The concept of swapping is simple. We invited people to come and give away a number of items they own but no longer use. They could then take home the same number of objects they came with, choosing from what the others had brought. We received very positive feedback for allowing people to swap things across categories – give up a book and take back a T-shirt instead, get a frying pan instead of a DVD."

We found that children were by far the most enthusiastic about swapping. Even though few of them came, and there were not many toys around, they always found something to swap. They also asked if we approved the swap and tried to be fair in the exchange. We think organizing swapping events for children has great potential, and we will try to arrange events at schools in the New Year.

Christmas Swapping – making the Joy of Giving More Sustainable
Another swapping event was held for those last minute Christmas shoppers.

Hilde Nordbø from the Swapping team says: "We wanted to do something about Christmas shopping and thought swapping was an excellent way of reducing consumption and making people feel good about a conscious Christmas gift."

Swappers were able to wrap their “new” gifts in recycled Christmas paper and enjoy gingerbread cookies and tea with us. Heidi Smith concludes: "We have had so many people stop in to say that they want to participate in 2010, which is great! I’m sure 2010 will be the year when everybody in Oslo will be swapping rather than shopping!"