Bea Johnson made a decision to lead a life without trash which included al her family too. She stopped purchasing goods that could not be recycled such as disposable packaging, chemicals that come in plastic bottles and loads of useless stuff that people tend to pick up in supermarkets. Her home now known as the zero waste home all over the internet is one of the finest examples of how people can help the environment.
Bea put across the challenge to her family and began to live a simpler lifestyle that was more eco-friendly. She educated herself on environmental issues and began to use glass bottles for storage instead of plastic. In 1 year her family produces only 1 kg of trash every year compared to the national statistic that an average American generates 4 pounds of trash daily amounting to 1.5 tons of solid waste in a year. Bea is the author of the bestselling book, Zero Waste Home.
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How many of us can really do without the internet? That’s a real challenge but Journalist Paul Miller decided to accept the move that was initiated by a magazine so that he could document his experience. In his own words, this is how he started “At 11:59 PM on April 30th, 2012, I unplugged my Ethernet cable, shut off my Wi-Fi, and swapped my Smartphone for a dumb one. It felt really good. I felt free”.
Paul went completely offline and that included email too. There was no social app, social networking, he was totally offline. Paul documented his experience where he says at one point.
“And everything started out great, let me tell you. I did stop and smell the flowers. My life was full of serendipitous events: real life meetings, frisbee, bike rides, and Greek literature.” I lost 15 pounds without really trying. I bought some new clothes. People kept telling me how good I looked, how happy I seemed. In one session, my therapist literally patted himself on the back.
Today Paul is an enlightened person who browses the internet more consciously but he is thankful for the awesome experience but coming to think of it, what seems something so unique today was very much a way of life for people just 20 or30 years ago where the internet officially started in 1990 with the conception of the world wide web. But! It took a while to be affordable so that everyone was connected.
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This is truly an unusual experiment. Canadian Blair McMillan a father of two and his girlfriend Morgan 27 live their lives as if it was always 1986. They started doing it because their kids Trey 5 and Denton were too hooked onto their iPhones and would not even look up when spoken to let alone play in the yard.
The family now has no electronic devices that connect to the internet no fancy coffee machines or even cable TV. They are totally tech-free and parenting their kids as how a parent in 1986 would. The couple even does their banking by going to the bank and if you ask Blair something that requires a reference, he will take out his vintage encyclopedia instead.
They take photographs using the old film roll and developing a method and when traveling resort to paper maps instead of GPS.
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