Yahoo! News featured a story on the Green Apartment at UC Berkeley that focused on the students living in the housing. Initially a “green room” created by a campus Green Committee (and drawing 230 visitors), the concept was expanded to an entire eco-friendly apartment. Now four students live in the pad: Travis Zack, Jonathan Hu, Tim Edgar and Edward Chen.

It puts the co-ops to shame. Look at everything they’ve got:

the room is also decked out with energy-saving televisions and refrigerators, water-miser showerheads, low-toxicity shampoos and detergents, non-disposable razors, aluminum water bottles, and bedsheets made from birchwood instead of chemically processed cotton.

But the best part of the article details Zack pulling “a worm from a dark, decomposing mound in a compost bin topped with scraps of food.” Compost itself can get a little grody…but worms? In the kitchen?

Green-living is a bit too extreme sometimes. The model that the apartment sets isn’t realistic for the general population. Then again, it’s Berkeley — this isn’t the general population. You’ve got to start somewhere, but it’s doubtful the trend will pick up outside our bubble. Americans love comfort and convenience, and they won’t be ready to sacrifice these to save a few trees.

Sure, there’s the consideration that conservation makes you a better human being (yadda yadda yadda), but sometimes throwing away that perfectly-recyclable soda can makes you feel so strong, so defiant. You’re sticking it to the anti-Man.