Freeganism, Dumpster Diving, & Waste in America

[windinthemaples]

New York Times Article about Freegans Living in Buffalo! :D

I haven't gone dumpster diving for a few years, but I still remember the thrills of some of my best finds and the shock that perfectly good furniture, home accessories, and clothing would be thrown away. This makes me want to see that documentary on dumpster diving (and wastefulness), Dive!, even more. (Anyone seen it yet? :) )

Comments

[suzanna-o.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen the documentary, but that is a fabulous article. :)
What were some of your best dumpster finds?

[sugarmaplelife.livejournal.com]

One of my favorite finds was thanks to the timing as I was setting up an arts and crafts/sewing room. I found two bookcases, a new trash can, and about twenty unused stackable in-box kinds of trays that I stacked up for all my paper and scrapbooking materials.

[tangledaxon.livejournal.com]

I'm definitely not comfortable with the idea of living as a Freegan or dumpster diving, but I think the people who do it are great and I want to see the documentary!

[sugarmaplelife.livejournal.com]

I'm more astounded than anything that we live in a world where people really can live like kings on the discards and trash of others. There are some very interesting blogs in the world where people highlight the treasures they've found in other people's trash. It brings up a lot of moral questions for me. I'm too fiercely law-abiding to do much dumpster diving, but it provided a lot of things I couldn't afford to buy myself when I was my poorest and makes me consider, a lot more closely, what I consider trash and why.

[tangledaxon.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. All of this, and any other issues related to consumption, are some of the reasons I'd like to watch the documentary. I also tend to have a "consume wisely" point of view-- I think carefully about what I purchase and why, and I recycle everything I can.

[neva-butterfly.livejournal.com]

I can't watch video here, but I'll have to watch it at home.

I have very mixed feelings on freegans for a number of reasons.

On the one hand, I think it's a wonderful thing to pull things out of the waste stream and make use of them.

But in reality I've known (and lived with) self-proclaimed freegans who took things that would not have gone to waste... But say my roommate has a job and can afford food and clothing, but prefers to get them for free and then goes to places to get these free items and in doing so is actually competing with real homeless people who need and depend on those things...

I'm probably not explaining right, but there were cases where I knew someone racing to the bagel place for the bag of day old bagels carefully placed on top of the trash, and they were racing against people who didn't have other food resources.

All the same, when I lived in NYC I pulled furniture and clothes out of the trash at times. I figured when it came to individuals' trash, put out at the curb, it was first come first serve, as opposed to business dumpsters known as lifelines for the homeless.

I'm also a little disturbed by the prevelance of smoking in the freegan article you linked to--so you don't buy things with money, except by buying tobacco you support a really evil industry? Strange.

[sugarmaplelife.livejournal.com]

That's why I really admire community efforts like Food Not Bombs that organizes people to harvest, cook, and distribute dumpstered food together. I'm sure for every dumpster that is a competed-over hot spot, there are ten where food cycles through and is landfilled before anyone, freegan or homeless, has the chance to utilize it.

I found the freegan article very controversial. On the one hand, they're being praised as good neighbors improving a home that would have otherwise sat vacant, but at the same time they're smoking pot and partying til all hours? Not exactly a crowd I'd want to befriend. Still, very interesting that they've managed to stay there so long, without being jailed or evicted or whatever, and thought-provoking to think of what people can do in community with hard work and a sharing ethic.

[neva-butterfly.livejournal.com]

I suppose that if it's a former crack house then pot-smoking freegans who have grateful dead parties are an improvement.

[sugarmaplelife.livejournal.com]

Ha! Yes, I suppose that is a move upwards for the neighborhood.

[lilith42.livejournal.com]

Stuff like this always gets my goat. Example, while I was working at Starbucks, I would often take the 'old' pastries and on the way home, distribute them to people standing in the medians begging. I got in trouble for that because we could be sued by one of them if they were to get sick from it. My argument...we *just* pulled these out of the pastry case, if they were bad enough not to feed to the homeless, why are we making customers pay for them? But I was always told just to do my job without stealing. Pissed me off.

Personally, I don't know that I would be able to eat food out of a dumpster, unless it was out of necessity. But I have no problems getting furniture and various odds and ends out of a dumpster...that is how we furnished many apartments before moving here.

[neva-butterfly.livejournal.com]

When I was in NYC they said it was some kind of thing to avoid the risk of lawsuits you had to put the discard food in a trash can. So businesses would take all the food that was still decent/untouched, put it in a clean bag, bag up all the other trash in different bags and put that out and then put the clean bag containing only food on the top. They said if you hand the food to someone and they get sick you can be in trouble, but if you place it in the trash can and they take it out, even if they take it out seconds later, then they assume all risk and you can't get into trouble.

[lilith42.livejournal.com]

I just think it is crap in general that people have to be afraid of lawsuits when handing food to hungry people.

Also, Starbucks (in Target, so kind of under the Target umbrella but still checked up on by Starbucks corporate) wouldn't let us do *anything* to help out the community. I wasn't allowed to start recycling (since we used A LOT of plastic and cardboard containers) and I wasn't allowed to do anything about the leftover food. If *any* of that stuff left the building I would be charged with theft. This is an actual summary of a conversation I had with my boss at the time. This was after I had tried to do it on my own with my co-workers help.

I hate corporate America sometimes.

[sugarmaplelife.livejournal.com]

In our family, Daniel eats almost all of the leftovers. I think I have too many food safety issues to be too keen on eating dumpstered food. I recognize that's not always a logical thought. When I worked at Publix, I'd see workers slinging sealed foods, by the caseload, into the sealed trash compactor each day. Things that were discontinued or nearly expired or mildly damaged. That killed me, seeing perfectly good food become unattainable. And yet, if I'd grabbed a bag of those smashed cookies to take home, I'd have been accused of stealing product. :/ Lame.

[aerialmelodies.livejournal.com]

My friend used to work at Publix as well and she hated the waste. She found out Publix donates "old" food so she would make up college functions to save the bread. I don't think I ever bought bread my entire senior year, lol. I suppose it was the wrong way to go about it, but at least we ate the bread instead of it going in the trash. Subway also throws out any un-round cookies because those "aren't correct." And? Like eating a misshapen cookie will alter my taste for it? Once again, another friend who worked at Subway would frequently steal cookies and give them away. It's like okay, you're throwing it away meaning you don't get money for it, yet you won't give it away because that means you don't get money for it. Um... logic please.

[ilea.livejournal.com]

It's amazing how much stuff goes to waste.

Living in a town with so many hotels a lot of perfectly good food gets thrown away. My evil uncle used to work at the Marriott and he'd come home nightly with pounds upon pounds of seafood and meat that were about to go into the dumpster which is locked up so no one can get to it. I asked once why they didn't donate it to one of the homeless shelters or food pantries and I was told that they wouldn't do it for fear of someone getting sick and suing them. INSANE! Our local grocery store donates bruised fruits and veggies to the food pantry so that's at least good. I get heartsick over the food waste that goes on... but then I feed the homeless weekly so that's a subject close to my heart.

I don't dumpster dive anymore but I love going trashing. Did you see the window seat I posted? I've found all sorts of things in the trash. Plants, cinderblocks, cypress board, bikes, fabric, furniture and sewing machines... my best find was before katrina when I was riding home from school and I found a washer dryer set on the curb that looked almost new. On a hunch I took them home and they worked! They came from a super rich neighborhood and I guess the previous owners got a new set. Amazes me since I would never throw out something that worked.

[sidheblessed.livejournal.com]

That doco looks amazing. It's shocking how much food is wasted and thrown out, instead of given to people who need it. I often wonder what things would be like if restaurants, for example, just gave their uneaten food to homeless people or used that for their own dinners instead of throwing it out. We might find we do have enough food in the world to feed people, if we didn't waste it all.