the year of living responsibly

it is a pleasure and an inspiration to read and know about people who are persistent and committed in minimising their impact on the world around them. i am humbled at the smallness of my effort - limited to things that are convinient to me - and at the same time fired at what else i can do to further promote this efforts in my life.

the question to ask yourself is, what would you be willing to sacrifice for a more environmentally sound life?

read below for the story of a real life hero.


The year without toilet paper
The New York Times
22 march 2007

DINNER was the usual affair on Thursday night in Apartment 9F in an elegant prewar on Lower Fifth Avenue. There was shredded cabbage with fruit-scrap vinegar; mashed parsnips and yellow carrots with local butter and fresh thyme; a terrific frittata; then homemade yogurt with honey and thyme tea, eaten under the greenish flickering light cast by two beeswax candles and a fluorescent bulb.

A sour odor hovered oh-so-slightly in the air, the faint tang, not wholly unpleasant, that is the mark of the home composter. Isabella Beavan, age 2, staggered around the neo-Modern furniture — the Eames chairs, the brown velvet couch, the Lucite lamps and the steel cafe table upon which dinner was set — her silhouette greatly amplified by her organic cotton diapers in their enormous boiled-wool, snap-front cover.

A visitor avoided the bathroom because she knew she would find no toilet paper there.

also read No Impact