Collectively, small lifestyle changes can make a huge impact on the environment-and your life. Looking for happiness and health? What’s good for the environment is also, it turns out, great for you. Here’s a collection of tips from the No Impact community.
Do you have a video story from your No Impact Experiment? Share your story below:
We went for several years without TV in our house. Having grown up with no electric, running water, or indoor toilets, this was not hard for me. I remember the best times of our lives playing games with my family. The new game Apples to Apples is a favorite (even of the members of our family who still have no electric). My cousin and I have laughed ourselves out of our chairs several times. We use a small electric lamp on a small table instead of the oil lamp. We also used to play “dictionary”. A specified person would spend a week combing the dictionaries for strange words. They would write the correct definition on a scrap of paper and leave the others blank or provide a made up definition. They would do this for about ten definitions or so. We would sit around trying to guess which was the correct definition. (before you accuse us of destroying trees, the scraps were the backs of paper that had already been used, and afterword they got recycled and turned into greeting cards, but I digress)
Milles Bournes is a great family game, or do as my cousin does and build your own board game. She uses the cardboard from cereal boxes for the materials. We used to play a game with guests called “tell me a story”. Living in the frozen north where it is dark for months, you cannot always provide sufficient light for games, so we would tell stories. Someone would pick a topic like: “the biggest trouble I got into as a child was…”
Little ones love this game because it bridges the generation gap. They realize that mum, dad, grandmum, grandpop, uncles, aunties, librarians, EVERYONE, got into mischief as a child. We sang songs together and even made up songs. My dad was a champ at giving old songs new lyrics-he was Wierd Al long before it was cool.
We have TV now that the kids are grown and I don’t always like it. We have TV free times in the mornings and specified evenings (in our case it is for meditation,scripture readings, and worship as well as family time)
I found the whole concept of a project called “no impact man” kind of strange, because my family has had very low impact for generations, and it seemed to me like just the way things are.
This post was submitted by Michelle Chamberlin.
Some one may have already posted this hint since it is getting popular. The women in a few congregations call one another and announce a swap. We all go through our closets and homes for things that either no longer fit, or just aren’t serving us any longer. Like, you meant to use that rice cooker you got at a yard sale, but just never did, or don’t anymore. Nothing is off limits except underthings. One friend once brought canned deer stew that they wouldn’t be using that year.
Once the date and place is set we womenfolk bring our things and sort them out. Skirts in one room, knick knacks in another, coats aside from the dresses, pants in another room with tops nearby.
The marvelous thing about a swap is that you get together with your friends and start putting outfits together. The reason you never wore that skirt is because it just didn’t go with what you had; but at the swap someone will put it with the jacket they never wore for the same reason and TADA-OUTFIT. Then you just have to decide who gets to keep the peices. In extreme cases we draw lots (numbers from a hat).
What is really fun is that we will see our stuff worn by someone at a conference and just wink and say “swap”. The best outfits I ever got were at a “swap”. I also have towels, lamps, games, pictures and frames, all from swaps.
The things that no one can use are packed up and sent to charity shops, so we don’t bring the extras back into our house.
This post was submitted by Michelle Chamberlin.
Over the years, we’ve become more and more low-impact but, like others of you have said, we could do such more. We live in a small house (880 sq.ft), only have one car (and it’s 10-years-old, gets good gas mileage), walk when we can. Our local store is a health food store that only carries organic, mostly local, and no meat-1.5 blocks away-lucky, aren’t we?
My partner is the head of an electronics recycling facility-they recycle almost everything. Again, this is lucky because there’s very little we can’t recycle. And we buy almost all of our electronics used, including computers. I eat almost no meat, and only a smidgen of dairy.
We always use reusable mugs, we buy local whenever we can.
Still, when I take the footprint quiz I find it would take 4 planets to sustain this lifestyle-amazing.
Clearly the culture itself will have to change in order for us to scale down further.
I’m so looking forward to learning more from all of you.
This post was submitted by Isbel Ingham.
My boyfriend Miguel grew up in Ecuador and his grandmother used to use lemon as a deodorant. At first I was skeptical but I didn’t want to keep using my herbal deodorant which didn’t work, and which was contained in plastic- so I tried it. And lo and behold it totally works! Even after a long sweaty run or after I introduced Miguel to my parents for the first time (I was very nervous!) I did not smell one bit! All you do is wash your armpits in the shower (in a very BRIEF shower to save water) and take a lemon wedge and glide the wet part over your armpit. You can even reuse the same wedge the next day (keep it in the fridge.) Saving money, using less plastic and smelling lemony fresh, it ROCKS!
This post was submitted by princess superstar.
For about 8 years now I’ve been using a programmable thermostat for my heating system. It has made a huge difference and I’ve learned a few things. The best part is that you don’t have to think about it all the time.
I set the temperature lower for nights and for weekdays when no one is at home. So it’s only set for a normal temperature about 1,5 hours in the morning and 4 hours at night. I also found I sleep better at a lower temperature.
It takes time for the apartment to cool down, so in the evening it is set to low about 1,5 hours before I go to sleep. During the day when no one is home the temperature can be even lower.
If we take trips, even just for a day, I set it to low. The savings have been great and I know I’m not heating unnecessarily, so it feels good. I’m betting the same results can be achieved for an A/C, but I don’t need one where I live.
This post was submitted by Cristina Sann.