Jan 11, 2007-- Last year, 10 environmentally conscious friends wondered what it would be like to go a year without buying anything new. Twelve months later, the results from their experiment are in. While broken vacuum cleaners and malfunctioning cell phones posed challenges, the group says their shopping sabbatical was so liberating that some have resolved to do it again! The pledge they named The Compact soon spread through the Internet to other cities. Participants like Rachel Kesel were astonished by what was dubbed "Compact Karma" -- how often the items needed simply materialized -- the friend who replaced a stolen bicycle seat, the Apple store employees who fixed her laptop for free. Says original member John Perry, "I have a completely different relationship with the things in my life, I appreciate the stuff I have more." (3067 reads)