My family has been practicing some of the things Colin did for a while.
We have had no tv in our house for the last 4 years. That was really hard for my husband. Now we read books every night to the kids.
We have been using cloth napkins for the last 7 years. My mom in law got a kick out of that.
We have never used paper towels. We use microfiber cloths for cleaning and there is no need to use chemicals with them. They work best when cleaning just with water.
Although we do use electricity we never turn on the a/c or the heater. We have heavy curtains and shutters.
We bought half a grass feed cow, locally. We dont by any meat (chicken, etc.. that is processed in a USDA plant). We also never eat out, but our TREAT, when we occasionally go out to eat is for sushi, but we bring along our organic soy sauce bottle along with us. (GMO soy sauce in every japanese restaurant in LA). This is when I feel we are a little coo-koo.
We bring lunch to work in stainless steel containers.
And now more recently, we bought a water distiller for the house, have sworn off plastic water bottles and use refillable water canteens for school and work.
This post was submitted by Irene Spiegel.
I gave up regular shampoo for the year!(hopefully for life!) I started washing my hair with Dr Bronner’s once a week at the beginning of the year- the transition was a bit rocky (I wore a lot of ponytails and scarves the first 3-5 weeks hah) During lent used nothing but water to rinse my hair. This experiment when really, really well actually! I was so surprised! As long as I blow dried it it looked fine. Now I’m washing my hair once every two weeks with Dr Bronners and i don’t even have to blow it dry for it to look good (I’m glad because hair dryers can be unnecessary use of energy) I’m noticing some dandruff however, so starting in May I’m going to try out an apple vinegar rinse! This is supposed to be good for your scalp I love not using shampoo Now I smell like my homemade soap with out any fake chemical fruity smells in my hair! No shampoo is liberating and it makes the showers shorter!
This post was submitted by Margaret.
I am eating a lot less than I have ever… I am mostly on living foods… however do have the occasional brown rice, or stir fry. All vegetarian, no wheat, no dairy, only natural sugars.
Have a green smoothie everyday, and have come to the place where I want to learn how much it would take to grow enough greens to support my consumption of green smoothies… so I have began a garden inside, started a variety of greens and will see if I can’t support my smoothie habit.
This post was submitted by Dana Lynn.
This tip is so universal and so important both for the child, mother and nature. It is a win-win situation on all frontiers. Mothers’ milk does not pollute, it changes with the baby, always ready and the right temperature, you will be on-the-go with your baby without any fuss over carrying heaters, baby bottles,sterilizers etc. You’ll save money, time and your child will grow into a healthy individual, both physically and emotionally.
This post was submitted by Almedina.
I just watched your movie and it really was encouraging to see. I believe we are a no impact family as well, so it was nice to see all the stuff we went through. It all started when we got pregnant for my daughter and realized we wanted to eat healthier. After 7 years I am now finishing an associates in Alternative Energy Engineering, Shane my husband is finishing certificates in Organic farming, watershed, and horse management. With this and lifestyle we have the ever changing goal in our life that we want to live self sustainable. I do notice that after looking at all the problems and solutions, not only in our life in a micro level, but from what we learned in our education on a macro level, the most impact is: the change within us and rejoining ourselves in community. The beautiful thing about human survival is that our bodies down to our souls know what’s best for us, basically we are our own best healers, and once the awareness seed is planted it just keeps on blooming. I think what your doing is great because the impact that you are making is planting those seeds. For some it may not grow now, but will, they may just find a different way to nurture it. But the ones that are ready, the work is done, now they will feed that need inside of them, because it is so rewarding. Keep up the great work, and just to let you know you are not alone, we and many others are doing our part to be as informative as possible, that a no impact life style can work. We cant fix an energy problem without changing our energy. In sequence these are some of the things we did.
Did wilderness survival classes
Started to eat Organic and local food and stopped eating out
Had a home birth
Only shopped at thrift stores
Stopped going to the doctor and only used herbal remedies, this has been our biggest change and most work because it made diet changes
We did a short lived news paper on networking organic and CSA farmers, midwives, co-ops, and heath based businesses.
Took up blacksmithing
composting
Joined co-ops
Drove a grease car
Went without deodorant (many complained)
Sewed our own clothes
Made our own shoes out of recycled tires
Did our own laundry, now we have resorted to just the drying part
Doing homeschooling
Got rid of our TV
We Lived off the grid for a few months on just a wind turbine, and solar panel on a CSA farm.
Bathed out of buckets, and took solar showers
Walked
Make our own soap
refused gifts
where natural fibers
cloth diapers
Do limited water dishes
recycle everything
bartered
Got involved with local government
Traveling working on farms for food and life style, at that time we moved alot
Took up playing instruments
Grey water system with our toilet
Made a composting toilet
Took up gardening, and raising livestock
Immersed ourselves in community
Got involved with education that involves sustainability
Do research on corporate buy outs of products
Surrounded ourselves with support
We haven’t gotten to the place where we want to be yet and sustainability and no impact has fluctuated to work with our life changes, But our goal is to have a low net energy community farm. We love this lifestyle and want to see how far we can take ourselves while still being a part of society. We are now just starting business called “Potential Energy” where we do a life cycle analysis on peoples lifestyles and give them resources, ideas, to improve change with their lifestyle, themselves and with their community, as much as they can and our willing to do.
We just really want to see the change in people, with out them feeling uncomfortable, and representing that in what we do.
Lots of love, Beth, Shane and Leda Celeste
This post was submitted by Beth Celeste.
Have you taken a look in kids lunches lately? Individual servings, wrapped in plastic, in portions too large for most kids, and filled with too much sugar. I have taken back the brown paper sack lunch and replaced it with a basket (from the thrift store). Inside I pack sandwiches filled with home made almond butter and apple cider jelly (from apples gleaned by my daughter), homemade granola and yogurt, mason jars filled with milk or juice, and none of it wrapped in anything. All of this is topped with a handmade napkin and reuse-able water bottle to keep it all in. Everyday she comes home with her basket ready to fill the next day rather than full of garbage.
This post was submitted by Rhiannon Fisher.
Jim & I learned to live small while sailing our boat to the Bahamas from Lake Ontario. We found that the most expensive and high energy using thing on board was our fridge. So over the side it went! (Actually, we just never installed it, some-one gave us a few bucks for it, poor slobs!) We found that my chef-type skills were up to the challenge, although you’re only as good as your food source, (read: US small towns don’t really have a great fruit & veg department).
We now live in a 500 sq. foot house quite similar to our boat: no fridge. No running water. PV electric panels work great especially when you just plain old don’t NEED.
This post was submitted by Michelle.
I heat and cook with wood which I fetch from nearby woods, usually dead or down.
I grow almost all my food, using no commercial fertilizers or poisons. I get a nearby farmer to deliver a dumptruck load of manure yearly. Sometimes he can’t, so now my 10 hens are in a house I built them and I use the henhouse cleanings as excellent fertilizer.
I mow the lawns with a simple push mower. I rake up the mowings for mulch.
I drive an old VW Jetta that nobody wanted because some of the gears don’t work. It doubles as a pickup with the back seat down. (I’m always picking up something like dirty hay from the barn, buckets of decaying woodchips, firewood, restaurant waste for the hens…)
I go to town (8 miles over hills, otherwise perhaps I’d bike) once a week. I could go less often but I have a son with financial problems which require me to go to his workplace and collect his paycheck every week.
When I’m going to town I ask a neighbor if he needs anything.
I go to bed early and get up early.
I read books from the nearby library.
I rarely buy new clothes (you don’t need to look too good when you never go anywhere).
I work hard all day, so at night I’m too tired to need much entertainment.
I help a nearby dairy farmer whenever he needs me (no pay, but I get all the milk I can drink, as well as occasional packages of hamburger, tongue, liver).
I write letters. (I only have internet when I have children living at home, as now).
I make jams or dried fruit for Christmas presents. People love it.
Of course I hang-dry my laundry. In the winter I hang it in the house, it puts moisture in the air.
I build what I can, I fix what I can. This is very rewarding.
When I do buy new things I try to get excellent quality so they will last. For example, right now I am about to buy three new gardening tools (mine are finally busted), they all have lifetime guarantees.
On the rare occasions when I get sick I drink nettle tea (from nettles I pick and dry) or eat cayenne (from peppers I grow and dry).
I appreciate the beauty around me.
Don’t think you can’t do this. I’m a 60-year old mother of five.
This post was submitted by Wendy.
we are an artist and a musician working together to maximize the amount of time we’ve got to do our work (which happens to be very much inspired by sustainability and reconnecting with nature) by having very few expenses. we’re living in a 14′ travel trailer while we build a 15′ square cabin on some land in the high desert - the climate here is mild, so we need little in the way of heating and cooling, and we’re able to grow lots of our own food. my art studio runs on $500 worth of solar equipment (including panels and batteries). we made a refrigerator that burns a minuscule amount of energy simply by changing the thermostat on an old chest freezer we found next to a dumpster. much more info on our blog at http://www.theobviousobserver.com.
This post was submitted by alyce santoro.
Our family enjoys the tropical paradise of Honolulu and yet as an island we do all we can to buy local and reduce our dependence on foreign oil. We replaced our two Volvos with one Prius. We have planted our own ‘square foot’ gardens with seed plants from the university. All our exterior lighting is solar; and all interior CFLs. We eat dinners on outside by the light of our solar lights. We compost kitchen wastes and all green waste. All of our home improvements start with visits to Re-use Hawaii (a demolition-recycler). We still buy the latest and greatest Apple products, but we try to reduce, reuse and recycle.
This post was submitted by Ronald.