Impact: The Action of one Object Coming Forcibly into Contact with Another: "cause Injury on Impact"

Impact: The action of one object coming forcibly into contact with another: "cause injury on impact".

"Impact" is a word that is thrown around in today's "Going Green" society, appearing in several markets of the food and living industry. For example: the organic foods branch that is made with techniques and materials said to lower the human impact on our Earth. It is a great marketing tool because many people buy organic foods in order to be healthier and more Eco-friendly. Yet, many see it as a large joke that is tossed into the bin of hippy-tree-hugger anecdotes, discouraging the concept and making it all seem silly or futile--but is it? Is the act of recycling just a waste of time? What if someone didn't use products that even needed to be recycled in order to ensure that nothing was wasted--or if a person just eliminating the non-perishable items in the first place--and then on top of that, reduce their trash output in general? Colin Beavan, a New York "schmuck" turn liberal Eco-activist, created the experiment, (along with a documentary and book) called "No Impact Man". In this experiment, Beavan would change his and his family's lifestyle, "For one year, my wife, baby daughter, and I, while residing in the middle of New York City, attempt to live without making any net impact on the environment. Ultimately, this meant we did our best to create no trash (so no take-out food), cause no carbon dioxide emissions (so no driving or flying), pour no toxins in the water (so no laundry detergent), buy no produce from distant lands (so no New Zealand fruit). Not to mention: no elevators, no subways, no products in packaging, no plastics, no air conditioning, no TV, no buying anything new..." (3).

Beavan creates a time-line as well as a personal story of a man trying to save the environment from one family's impact. His writing is in a style that could be compared to an online blog or journal due to its infectious sense of humor paired with realistic opinion on his actions and others' reaction to his experiment. He begins with explaining the reasons behind his action; telling a summation of the relationship with his wife, "Michelle grew up all Daddy's gold Amex and taxi company charge account and huge boats and three country clubs and pledge allegiance to the flag. I, on the other hand, grew up all long hair to my shoulders, designer labels are silly, wish I was old enough to be a draft dodger and take LSD, alternative schooling, short on cash, save the whales, and we don't want to be rich anyway because we hate materialism" (3). The high contrast between the two give a possibility in failure that raise the stakes for the experiment and provide one of the many challenges that Beavan must face and overcome. His attempts to compromise with his wife's pro-material lifestyle give him a real perspective in his own changes--realizing that he tries too hard to change others and not enough to change himself--identifying his viewpoint as a weak liberal, "I made the mistake of thinking that condemning other people's misdeeds somehow made me virtuous" (6). It wasn't until 2006 when he realized that the world was indeed suffering from global warming with 70-degree winters, lighting and thunder-filled snowstorms, and the disappearance of transitional seasons such as Spring and Autumn. The notions of a dying earth bombarded his thoughts as he lived day to day as another statistic--unhappy, consuming commercial products, and complaining, "My problem was my inaction. I was worried sick about something and doing nothing about it," (9). Beavan wanted to create a self-changing experiment in order to lead by example--to be as non-preachy as possible but to let his actions and blog inspire and hopefully help to change the world.

Beavan inspired me to do his experiment in my own way--not to inspire but to be inspired and to see what I could do in order to better understand what Colin Beavan was working to prove. With all this said, could any student do it? Is it even practical to attempt such a project at a very young age or at a financially unstable time in life? I believed that it was very possible. Students can reduce the majority of their impact without much stress to their lives by making simple, yet major, choices every day. In order to prove my, argument I attempted a low-impact lifestyle for two weeks. I call it "low-impact" because I am a college student who relies heavily on the subway transit in order to commute to school from Queens to Manhattan, every day. It wasn't enough to simply read "No Impact Man," I wanted to try it for myself. It is possible to make changes to create less impact on the earth. People generally don't realize the Eco-damage done by day-to-day consumption. We buy our groceries in plastic bags, in plastic containers, with extra plastic coverings for freshness, paper packaging, non-recyclable caps and bottles, and the list goes on. The milk may be organic and the meat may come from a free-range farm, but the product is still surrounded by non-recyclable materials we simply cannot avoid throwing away.

For the first part of my project, I embodied stage one to Beavan's example (he fulfilled his experiment in stages as to slowly introduce the changes to his wife and daughter, "Stage one was trying to figure out how to live without making garbage: no disposable products, no packaging, and so on," so I eliminated buying all items sold in plastic, paper, or any non-perishable containers. This means I had to stop buying all beverages in common stores (most of the food items bought at my school cafeteria) and many other items such as make-up and hair supplies that had to be purchased with plastic or paper wrapping. In order to do this, I used an aluminum water bottle to carry around my drink supply, a meal-sized Tupperware container to buy single meal items at my school café