No Impact Man Guide. Sunday

Want to save money?

Lose weight? Have more time? Live healthy and be happy?

Perhaps, this manual will show you how.

This guide is not riddled with facts and figures about how you’re destroying the environment. Thousands of web sites already do that, and thousands more show you how to reduce your carbon footprint for the sake of the environment.

This is different.

The focus of our program is to help you live a happier life that will result in a happier earth. And so, this manual is about you. If you haven’t already registered, sign up here. http://simplesteps.org/register-no-impact-week

Think of this guide as your personal trainer for a week. It's organized by day. You will stop consuming new goods on

a Sunday, then on Monday you will stop making trash, and on Tuesday you will switch to non-carbon producing transport, etc. Each day builds on the day before, so by Friday you are not shopping for new goods, not making trash, only traveling by sustainable transportation, eating locally, using less energy, and wasting less water. We recommend reading through this guide and preparing for the experiment one week before you begin. We’ve offered some general ideas and resources to help guide you through each day, but don’t limit yourself to what we’ve written. If you have great ideas about how to live lower impact, click here and share them with your fellow No Impact men and women. http://noimpactproject.org/change/story/

The Experiment is about impacting yourself, your community, and your country. In addition to changing your habits this week, we ask you to volunteer at least once for a local environmental organization and get involved in at least one of our non-partisan partners’ national advocacy campaigns.

As you progress from day to day, you'll find tools we’ve created to connect you with other participants and help you stay motivated. You’ll learn more about these inside. You can find answers to all of your questions about the week on our website.

http://noimpactproject.org/experiment/faqs/

Good luck! (And please don’t print this out.)

Sunday: consumption

Welcome to Day 1 of your No Impact Experiment!

Challenge: Live a fuller and happier life by bying less stuff

This first challenge is about doing more with less. People around the world are discovering that they'd rather spend time making social connections than buying new stuff. To learn why this is such an important part of living a lower impact life, watch one of our favorite videos, The Story of Stuff. The No Impact Experiment is a truncated version of Colin Beavan’s experience trying to live in New York City with no environmental impact. Three months into Colin’s year-long experiment, he stopped consuming new goods (except food). As his wife Michelle discovered, when you kick your shopping habit, you’ll save money, have more time to spend with your family and friends, discover more space in your house, and maybe — just maybe — you’ll discover that less really IS more

Steps:

1. Type up a list of all the stuff you “need” to buy this week. Delete the items that you can live without for the week. For the rest of the items, figure out

if you can purchase them second-hand, borrow them, or make them yourself.

2. Put an empty re-usable bag in a private place at home. Throughout the day, fill it up with all of your trash, recyclables, and food waste. If you’re out of the house, carry your trash home with you. Make sure that nobody else’s trash gets in there but your own. This will help you get ready for Monday’s challenge.

3. Just for this week, try not to shop for new items. Will you find something better to do with your time and money? Could you use this time to spend with friends instead?

4. What is the hardest part of decreased purchasing? Go to our site and blog about your experience, thoughts, and overall consumption habits. If you’re trying something new or unique, tell us about it. http://experiment.noimpactproject.org/

5. Please take your brief end-of-day survey. We will email it to you. You will be asked to do this everyday this week. It will help us evaluate your experience.

FYI

Ninety-nine percent of the stuff we harvest, mine, process, transport — 99 percent of the stuff we run through this production system is trashed within six months.Annie Leonard, “The Story of Stuff”

t’s a vicious circle.

I worry a lot about this keeping-up-with-Jones’s stuff because I believe

that many of us compulsively work our butts off to get more stuff

— which means more resources have to be dug out of the planet’s guts and more pollutants have to be vomited into the air, earth and water. And what stings is the fact that we often find out that getting more isn’t making us happier.

—No Impact Man blog,

August 9, 2007 http://noimpactman.typepad.com/blog/2007/08/the-unhappy-num.html

Ideas for change

Stop Shopping

Get inspired to give it up. Go online and watch Reverend Billy’s next “Stop Shopping Hour of Power.” http://www.revbilly.com/participate/hour-of-power

U Instead of another few hours spent shopping, take a bike ride, go ice skating, clean out your closet, read a book. Replace shopping with an activity that you enjoy doing more.

U If you've never considered making your own body and cleaning products, you'll be surprised at the money you'll save and the fun you'll have. http://www.thedailygreen.com/going-green/community-tips/diy-beauty-products-461108

U Let's face it — things

break. Instead of heading straight for the mall, first try to fix it yourself. For tips on how to fix things or to post your own fix-it problem, click here. http://www.howtomendit.com/

Hand-Me-Loves (aka Hand-Me-Downs)

Try shopping in your own closet (you never know what you’ll find that you forgot about!) Clear out your closet with Freecycle™, a free local network of people who give away their stuff. Other good ones are SwapTree, Craigslist, and, of course eBay®.

1. Get a group of friends together and have a clothing swap. Trade your tired threads and get a new look without spending a penny. Click here for five strategies for throwing the perfect clothing swap.

2. One person’s trash is another person’s...Take your pals dumpster diving for treasures untold. For the truly adventurous, give

freeganism a go.

3. Find an alternative to brand new in secondhand stores such as Goodwill or Buffalo Exchange.

For Must-Have Purchases

To learn how to keep more money in your pocket, support people and places you love, and find products that are good for all of us, download a local buying

guide from the Center for a New American Dream. http://www.newdream.org/buyingwisely/index.php

U Browse NRDC Simple Steps for a cornucopia of ideas to help you make better product choices for your health and the environment.

U Look for green products that are eco-friendly or made from recycled materials and shop from truly green companies. Search the GreenPages to find screened and approved green businesses.

This list is just the tip of the iceberg. Click here http://www.newdream.org/consumption/quality.php for more resources, and if you have new ideas, click here to share them with us. http://noimpactproject.org/change/story/%20

Cool idea #1

Be lazy! According to Matt McDermott’s article on Planet Green, “buying nothing, doing less, and being lazy can help the planet!”

Cool idea #2

Get crafty with these eight fabulous green DIY fashion projects. http://planetgreen.discovery.com/fashion-beauty/fabulous-green-fashion-projects.html

Cool idea #3

Send a text message to 66937 with GREEN[company or brand name] (ex: GREENnike, GREENdelta, GREENtarget) and you’ll receive a message back from Climate Counts with that company’s climate score and the company leading that industry sector. Or you can download the free Climate Counts pocket-sized company scorecard"