Living -- and Blogging -- the Green Life.

Living -- and Blogging -- the Green Life.

06/25/2007 11:53 am
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Sunday, June 24, 2007; M06







Just how planet-friendly can you get in 2007? Is it possible to live without producing trash or using appliances? A handful of bloggers are finding out. The intimate details of their adventures are a helpful -- and often hilarious -- way to learn what you can do for the planet, as well as what you probably aren't ready to do.



The most famous blogger of the bunch, writer Colin Beavan of No Impact Man ( http://noimpactman.typepad.com), not only composts his own excrement and eschews electricity, but he does so while living in Manhattan (a book and documentary are in the works) with his wife and 2-year-old.



Among the anecdotes about stomping laundry in the bathtub are serious musings on such topics as the future of capitalism and the relationship between goods and happiness -- grappling with, as the 43-year-old Beavan puts it, "finding a sense of meaning in living in a way that I feel isn't all about me, but reflects my concern for my planet and my community."



Toronto journalist Vanessa Farquharson, 28 -- who has vowed to make one small change in her lifestyle every day, from trading tissues for hankies to unplugging her refrigerator -- writes Green as a Thistle ( http://www.greenasathistle.com). The site has garnered a following for its candid product reviews and amusingly snarky tone: An organic body wash is deemed "craptastic"; an entry on the perils of airline food is called "No Steaks on a Plane."



"It's been much easier figuring out how to make spinach last more than a day [without a refrigerator] than it has been finding a way to effectively wash my hair without sodium lauryl sulfate," she says.



Though these two sites receive thousands of hits a day, they're not the only ones worth reading. So many eco-blogs are out there that there's even a blog about the blogs: Best Green Blogs ( http://www.bestgreenblogs.com).







-- Eviana Hartman