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Compacting started in the USA (where else?) when a group of friends in San Francisco discussed how consumerism is destroying the world and how they all owned far too much anyway.

They decided to go beyond recycling and agreed to not buy anything new for a year and so 'The Compact' was born. The name was inspired by the Pilgrim fathers and the compact they drew up as well as their preference for a simple lifestyle.

The rules are quite simple: Buy nothing new except food, essential medicine, consumables such as shampoo and utilitarian underwear!

Libby Pearson decided to join 'The Compact' in January 2007 and as she comes to the end of her first compacting year she explains what made her make such a radical change to her lifestyle.

'Compacter' Libby

"I’m very interested in the environment and very worried about the environment. I believe that we’re living on one planet like we’ve got three planets, we haven’t got a spare planet out there! An absolutely huge amount of stuff goes to landfill on a daily basis and that worries me.

"I was looking at things and thinking this hasn’t come to the end of its life, why am I getting rid of it? Why am I replacing it? There’s nothing wrong with the old one - ok it’s green and this year it should be red.

Shopping is Britain's number one leisure activity, so how did Libby find the experience initially and how did she resist temptation?

"Shopping has become a leisure activity, which is absolutely fine, but that’s not what I want to do for my leisure timeÌý It was very odd at the beginning and I felt a bit odd as well. I was the only one in the street without the fifteen carrier bags at one point because it was the January sales.

"By March I found I was doing lots of different activities. I live half an hour away from York, but I hadn’t walked the walls since I was about 12, so we walked the walls. We visit museums and art galleries, we go to the theatre and the cinema. Ordinarily we might have gone to a designer outlet or somewhere like that which fills me with horror now to be quite honest, but we’ve found different things to do.

"I’ve broken the habit, it's a wasteful habit. You think you’re getting a sense of pleasure out of buying something, which you might be for the time being, but I always find when I get home I think what on earth did I buy that for, I’ll never use it, it doesn’t fit, it’s a horrible colour. What was I thinking?"

As the year draws to a close, Libby reflects on how things have changed for her...

"I think it’s given me a sense of freedom, it’s freed me up to do things I used to do years ago. It’s made me appreciate what I’ve already got and how much I’ve got in comparison with other people.

"I feel stronger as well because it has taken quite a lot of willpower. I feel more confident, I changed jobs so things have changed in my life over the year and all for the better."