As a city-dweller I get, and have even considered, doing without a car. But I’m stymied at going without toilet-paper. Give me a bog roll made from recycled paper but I won’t use a newspaper prior to processing into a much softer format.
Colin Beavan’s family on the other hand, did go a year without toilet paper. Or a car. Or TV. Or electricity. And nothing new other than food. Oh, did I mention the family included a two-year-old?
It all sounds pretty extreme but the Beavans survived their year-long experiment and as toddlers usually do, the two-year-old adapted easily to the new lifestyle. They experienced year of appreciating what they had and their relationships with people rather than things.
Colin Beavan documented his year in his “green printed” book, No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process. His intention was to bring attention to the problem of global warming and to discover how necessary life’s necessities really are.
I’ll admit, I don’t think that I could do what the Beavans did but I am wanting to live a little greener and perhaps his book would give me some insight on how to live without the things I couldn’t possibly live without.
Watch an interview with Colin Beavan.
See a promo for the No Impact Man documentary:
