USA: New documentary "No Impact Man" tells story of Colin Beavan and his family as they try to live with as little environmental impact as possible for one year

Record ID: 785935

  • Title: USA: New documentary "No Impact Man" tells story of Colin Beavan and his family as they try to live with as little environmental impact as possible for one year
  • Date: 13th September 2009
  • Summary: NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (RECENT) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) COLIN BEAVAN, ENVIRONMENTALIST, SAYING: "It was like we were wrecking the world and we weren't even having a party and it was really depressing. So I thought, I have to do something about this and I wanted to wag my finger at everybody, and then I realised well wait a minute, my own way of life is actually contributing to the problem."
  • Embargoed: 28th September 2009 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Usa
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Entertainment,Nature / Environment
  • Reuters ID: LVAENVMEQPXI0MWJBR58DD2EVKQG
  • Story Text: Imagine a life without a refrigerator, air conditioning, coffee, or god forbid - a television! Colin Beavan so despaired at a lack of political action on climate change that he decided to see what difference he could make by living a year with as little impact on the environment as possible.
    "It was like we were wrecking the world and we weren't even having a party and it was really depressing. So I thought, I have to do something about this and I wanted to wag my finger at everybody, and then I realised well wait a minute, my own way of life is actually contributing to the problem," Beavan says.
    Beavan and his wife, Michelle Conlin, drastically changed their lifestyle, doing their best not to create trash, cause carbon dioxide emissions or pour toxins into the water supply and by buying only local produce. Conlin admits she was reluctant, at first.
    "I think I was your typical consumer. I started it, I had a little bit of debt, paycheck to paycheck, and was very much on the treadmill of the getting and the having, the acquiring of stuff," says Conlin.
    The New Yorkers rode bikes to get places, walked up and down nine flights of stairs to their apartment and cooked meals with food from a local farmers market. They also got rid of their television and bought no new clothes for themselves or their 18 month-old daughter, Isabella.
    "The first thing, we spent a month trying to figure out how to live without making trash, which meant we could buy absolutely nothing in packaging, absolutely nothing that was made to be used once and then thrown away. That means no plastic razors, no bottles, no nothing," Beavan told Reuters.
    Six months into the year, came the most dramatic step - they switched off the electricity.
    "So no television, no electricity, no refrigerator, no washing machine no air conditioning. We live on the 9th floor so no elevator so needless to say we both dropped a lot of weight, very fast," Conlin laughs.
    "Colin made all of our cleaning products from natural ingredients. Baking soda was toothpaste and shampoo and you can use it for deodorant, so it was really living like completely off the grid."
    Beavan has described his experiences in a book, 'No Impact Man'. A documentary of the same name, directed by Laura Gabbert and Justin Schein, will be released in the United States this month.
    "Our planet is in peril and we do have to begin looking at different ways of living. Not ways that make us miserable. Not ways that make us deprived at all. Just ways that we can live happily. The question becomes, can we live good lives without costing the planet?"
    Beavan and Conlin, who began their experiment in late 2006, discovered that living with little impact was not only good for the planet, it was also good for their bank account, cutting their discretionary spending by around 50 per cent.
    Today, the couple still tries to live sustainably, although not as radically. They still ride bikes, but occasionally take taxis, and they still live without a dishwasher, freezer, clothes dryer and air-conditioner.
    'No Impact Man' opens in select cinemas across North America on Friday (September 11).
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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