After year without, family finds middle ground

"Along with his wife and young daughter, Colin Beavan had just spent a year trying to reduce their net environmental impact to almost zero. With a flip of a switch, they had cut their Manhattan apartment off from the electrical grid. They had stopped using anything disposable or buying anything new. In a city of skyscrapers, they had given up elevators. They went everywhere by
bicycle, bought food directly from local farmers, had even sworn off toilet paper.

It had been a year of rules, a year in which nearly every aspect of their lives had been shaped by what they were not allowed to do. And now it was over."