Impact Man Summary

No Impact man, which was written by Colin Beavan in 2009, is a story about him and his family during their year-long experiment to having zero impact on the environment. The purpose of this story is to try and put the habitat first and see how it affects him and the world. Beavan is in the process of trying to determine his wants versus his needs in his new environmental lifestyle discussed in Chapter Two, "Day One and the Whole Thing is a Big Mistake." Although it is difficult to change his lifestyle to be environmentally friendly with no guidebook, he will do his best to not contribute to the planets destruction by being garbage free because he wants to not only show himself, but others, the balance of good versus evil (Beavan 2009).

Beavan struggles throughout his first day realizing his big reason of why he has never changed his life to live in accord with his values. His idea is to not become an environmental expert and then apply what he has learned. His idea is to start from scratch, with not a clue about how to deal with the planets emergencies. He wants to see what he can find out and evolve from his experiences. Having no guidance, having a tenuous team for the project, and staying in the city for the experiment are the three issues that Beavan deals with the most during this chapter (Beavan 2009).

Having no guidebook to the rules to making no negative impact on the environment is a challenge that he is facing. He is trying to live a no impact life in New York and all the information that he is cumulating is confusing. Paper bag or plastic? Ceramic cups or disposable cups? Rags or paper towels? Reusable cloths or plastic diapers? He doesn't see any reliable environmental-living road map to follow. With this, he begins to wonder. He believes the trick to environmental living might not be choosing different products or resources, but using fewer products and resources (Beavan 2009).

Beaven knows the guidebook is the least of his worries. To finish this project, he will need the support of his family. Michelle is fine with the project while lying on the couch half asleep reading a book, but when things start to get harder, he knows what their roles will be throughout this experiment. He will be the captain and the leader, while Michelle will be the second guesser; interfering with his plan (Beavan 2009).

He mentions to a friend about living an environmentally sound lifestyle while staying in New York and his friend, who he thought would be on board with his decision, dismisses the idea. Beavan believes that the planet will be much safer if the city people stay where they are. He wants to explore the environmental issues that he faces every day. Even though he takes his friend's opinion into consideration, he remains confident that it makes much more sense to try to see what can be done in the city than to attempt to try it somewhere on a farm (Beavan 2009).

Chapter Two, "Day