J's Cafe Nette

Yesterday I read this article in the New York Times titled A Year Without Toilet Paper.

It’s the story of a successful New York City couple who have gone green to the extreme. They make their own food from food grown within a 250 mile radius of New York City because that’s how far a farmer can go round-trip in a day.

They have a small child and have determined to not purchase anything, but did give in to get the baby a birthday gift at a second-hand store for $1.

They make compost from any waste they create and the article states it smells a bit sour in their home. There was a photo that showed their garbage has worms in it to process it.

They still have a maid but they finally made her give up her vacuum cleaner. They do still go to the basement of their apartment building and use the laundry facilities, but they refuse to take the elevator.

Here’s the explanation:

Welcome to Walden Pond, Fifth Avenue style. Isabella’s parents, Colin Beavan, 43, a writer of historical nonfiction, and Michelle Conlin, 39, a senior writer at Business Week, are four months into a yearlong lifestyle experiment they call No Impact. Its rules are evolving, as Mr. Beavan will tell you, but to date include eating only food (organically) grown within a 250-mile radius of Manhattan; (mostly) no shopping for anything except said food; producing no trash (except compost, see above); using no paper; and, most intriguingly, using no carbon-fueled transportation.

To each his own. But here’s the kicker:

Nothing is a substitute for toilet paper, by the way; think of bowls of water and lots of air drying.

As my daughter would say, TMI.

In a way I admire this couple for doing what they believe. They are walking the walk and not just talking the talk, but I wonder how they will manage in the summer when the humidity gets high and the temperatures soar.

We had a hurricane blow through here unexpectedly about 20 years ago. I live in the muggy South. We were without power for two weeks at the end of September.

Living by candlelight was fun for the first night and then we had to start taking cold showers, cook our food on the gas grill, and finally heat our water on the gas grill to pour into the bathtub to get a lukewarm bath.

I was unable to vacuum the floors and when the power did come back on I was amazed at all the soot that had accumulated on the side of the tub from placing that heavy pan of water on the edge of the tub. This even though I had scrubbed the tub, but couldn’t see everything as it was mostly done at night since I was still working. We did buy a small generator (large ones were unavailable) and could plug in the refrigerator and a lamp or the microwave and lamp, but not anything big with the refrigerator. Even though I did vacuum the floors with the assistance of the generator I was amazed at how not clean they were when the power came back on.

I did not do well living that way. Other people at work had their power back in a short time but I was still without it. My husband worked at a nuclear power plant and was able to shower at work, but all I could do was take lukewarm baths.

My daughter went to her best friend’s house to bathe and basically spent a lot of time with them, while my son was in college.

So I wonder if they can survive a hot, humid summer in NY while trying to live green for a year. And if they do, will anyone want to stand near them?

As I said, to each his own.

Tweet This Post

One Response to “Gross!”