When I was in college, my roommates and I didn’t think twice about picking sofas, coffee tables, and housewares out of other people’s trash. Don’t get grossed out. We always gave them a good scrubbing and disinfecting when we got home. We were definitely tried and true dumpster divers, mostly because we were too broke to buy what we needed. It’s fun to see what treasures you can find that others have discarded, and you couldn’t beat the price tag: Free.
A good friend and former roommate took it a step further. She was a freegan, meaning she didn’t pay for anything unless absolutely necessary. She would search for bags of discarded donuts and bagels in the dumpster of the local bagel shop. She would pull boxes of perfectly good, unspoiled pasta and fresh produce out of the dumpster behind the health food store three blocks from our apartment. She once salvaged a CD player from the dumpster behind an out-of-business electronics store, working except for the pause button, and reams of paper from behind a defunct office supply shop.
I’ll be the first to admit I was skeptical of the salvaged food, but she gave me a sneak peak into a different lifestyle. Sure, I liked to dumpster dive, but where I saw limitations, she saw opportunity. I dumpster dove so I could have a place to sit or something to put my television on.
did it to live, so she could eat better food and work fewer hours at her minimum-wage job: freeganism reduced her expenses so much that she only had to work one or two days a week to eat, live and pay her bills. And, we lived in a relatively expensive city.
What is a freegan, exactly?
It can mean a lot of things, but the heart of freeganism is reducing or eliminating wasteful consumption and use of the world’s resources. The site freegan.info says this:
“Affluent societies produce an amount of waste so enormous that many people can be fed and supported simply on its trash. As freegans we forage instead of buying to avoid being wasteful consumers ourselves.”
Yes, that means getting as much as they can out of the trash. Before you cringe, the freegan site says this:
“Despite our society’s stereotypes about garbage, the goods recovered by freegans are safe, usable, clean, and in perfect or near-perfect condition, a symptom of a throwaway culture that encourages us to constantly replace our older goods with newer ones, and where retailers plan high-volume product disposal as part of their economic model.”
Freegans and frugals have a lot of common ground. They don’t spend any money they don’t have to, and they deplore waste. Maybe it’s time for us frugal folks to think about incorporating some freegan-inspired (or freegan-light) ways into our lives. For example:
Dumpster dive: It doesn’t have to be for food. You can pick usable household items out of other people’s trash. Rental properties, college dorms at the end of Spring semester, and people who are moving are great spots for this. Or, like my friend, you could look through dumpsters behind major retailers looking for usable throwaway office supplies and housewares. I once got a really nice frying pan this way. I still use it 5 years later and it cost me nothing.
Get as much as you can for free: If you want free stuff but don’t want to dig through trash to get it, turn to Craigslist and Freecycle to fill your needs at no cost. On the flip side, post your unwanted items or discards on Craigslist or Freecycle, and keep it from going into the trash.
Intercept food before it goes into the trash: At my last office job, there was always a pot luck or a birthday cake somewhere. I noticed that half of it just ended up in the trash, so I started stashing Tupperware in my desk. After everyone was finished eating and the clean-up began, I’d ask if it was OK if I took something home and would stash it in my container. As long as you ask, most people are happy the food is going to a good home.
Swap: Get all of your friends together and host your own swap meet. Ask everyone to look in their closets and on their bookshelves for things they no longer want or need. everyone brings a box of stuff, and hopefully ends up trading it for something they need or will really use. Send any leftovers to charity. Swap parties sometimes work better the more people you have. Swap parties work really well with plants and garden items.
Recycle: Yes, that’s part of the freegan ethic and it should be part of yours too. If you are frugal and hate to waste, it’s logical to expect you not to waste, as in perfectly good recyclable paper and packaging. So please, hand over your leftovers to the recycling center. If you need more incentive consider taking your aluminum cans to the metal yard. It’ll net you a few dollars for your effort.
Go to or host a “free” market: This is just like what it sounds like: a market where all the goods and services are free. San Francisco, Flagstaff, AZ, and Carrboro and Raleigh, N.C., and Philadelphia are all home to free markets. If your city doesn’t have one, consider organizing your own. This is a variation on the personal swap meet, only on a community-wide scale.
Participate in a community garden or plant your own garden: In their effort to reduce waste, Freegans often grow their own food in community and personal gardens. What better way to save money, reduce the number of miles your produce has to travel from farm to table, than to grow it yourself? Some freegans also plant guerilla gardens, where they plant veggies or flowers on either abandoned overgrown lots or on public medians, to make use of otherwise wasted spaces.
My friend always had a few pots of seedlings on her balcony. She grew peppers, tomatoes, and one year even a few lentil plants. All were grown from free seeds of course, that she had culled from thrown-away veggies.
Dump the phantoms: Phantom loads that is. When she first moved in, my freegan friend unplugged all of the appliances, except the fridge, when weren’t using them. Phantom loads, or the energy your appliances and electronics use when they aren’t being used, really does add up to a substantial amount over time.Every dollar was precious at my house, so this just made sense.Revisit your living situation. Freegans pay as little as possible for housing. Could you reduce your housing costs, say by getting a roommate or downsizing to a smaller apartment?
This is easier for some people than others, but is worth considering. Until I got married, I always had a revolving array of friends, family, and roommates staying at my apartment. In college, we even turned our living room into an extra bedroom so we could add a summer-only roommate. It saved us $100 a month, which seemed like a fortune to us then.
The truly freegan lifestyle isn’t for everybody, but we can all learn something from freegan ways. Isn’t it time Americans stopped sending so many perfectly good items to the landfill? With the current economic crisis and many families feeling the pinch of falling home values, rising energy prices, and job loss, it may be time to revisit the idea of salvaging everything we can.
Saturday
4 Easy Ways to Be a Freegan
Conventional wisdom states that dumpster-diving is for the homeless. Freegans, however, are a small anticonsumerist group who won't allow anything useful to go to waste—to the point where middle-class environmentalists can be found scavenging the trash bins of grocery stores for the still-good food thrown out every day. Some of them even chronicle their finds on the Web, boasting of spending only a few dollars on food each month and furnishing their homes for free, often to the dismay of store owners who see them as scavengers.
Thankfully, you don't have to dumpster-dive to subscribe to the freegan philosophy and reap the cost-saving benefits. Here are a few tips for accessible—and considerably less smelly—freeganism:
Need a couch, or tennis racket or tea kettle? Rather than buying a new one, check the free listings on Craigslist or Freecycle. Often, people who are moving or spring cleaning put gently used belongings on the site, free to anyone willing to trek to their place and pick it up. It's far better than the environmental effects of the manufacturing, packaging, and transport that go into a new tea kettle, and if it breaks after two months, you never paid a dime for it, so who cares? Just search the site for another one. Be wary of searching Google for offers of free stuff, though—they might come with strings attached, like making you sign up for a credit card or other promotion. It's best to stick to local sites.
Remind yourself that one man's trash is another's treasure, and check with your friends and family while doing any massive closet or garage cleanouts. If you and your friends are similar in size (or your kids are), host a party where you swap all the clothes you were going to pitch. Anything unclaimed by the end of the night goes to charity, and you'll end up with a few new outfits if you're lucky. Some of my favorite skirts once surrounded the waists of stylish friends, and my sister's favorite place to shop is my closet. The same theory goes for neighborhood-wide yard sales, where you might be able to swap a mismatched lamp for some new picture frames. You could also join a swap group, like these listed on meetup.com or on flickr. Before you go, check out our tips for effective bartering.
This tip comes courtesy of a clever coworker, who always keeps an assortment of Tupperware at her desk. Whenever there's a work happy hour or party where there will inevitably be more food than people, she makes a beeline for the Tupperware and packages up all the leftovers before they get to the garbage. This way, a veggie platter and shrimp tray become the makings of tomorrow's stir-fry dinner. I employed a similar method in college at huge university-wide picnics, where I'd stash leftover soda cans in a backpack. Intercept food before it makes its way to the trash, and you're a far cleverer freegan.
Look on the Web for free events in your city or town—a newspaper's listings or city guide will tell you where they are. If you take advantage of free concerts, street festivals, outdoor film showings, and other events, you'll pick up new interests and also have more money for paying the bills—or to put toward eco-friendly purchases, like organic products. Search a local listing, or a site like eventful.com, for the keyword free.
Thankfully, you don't have to dumpster-dive to subscribe to the freegan philosophy and reap the cost-saving benefits. Here are a few tips for accessible—and considerably less smelly—freeganism:
Need a couch, or tennis racket or tea kettle? Rather than buying a new one, check the free listings on Craigslist or Freecycle. Often, people who are moving or spring cleaning put gently used belongings on the site, free to anyone willing to trek to their place and pick it up. It's far better than the environmental effects of the manufacturing, packaging, and transport that go into a new tea kettle, and if it breaks after two months, you never paid a dime for it, so who cares? Just search the site for another one. Be wary of searching Google for offers of free stuff, though—they might come with strings attached, like making you sign up for a credit card or other promotion. It's best to stick to local sites.
Remind yourself that one man's trash is another's treasure, and check with your friends and family while doing any massive closet or garage cleanouts. If you and your friends are similar in size (or your kids are), host a party where you swap all the clothes you were going to pitch. Anything unclaimed by the end of the night goes to charity, and you'll end up with a few new outfits if you're lucky. Some of my favorite skirts once surrounded the waists of stylish friends, and my sister's favorite place to shop is my closet. The same theory goes for neighborhood-wide yard sales, where you might be able to swap a mismatched lamp for some new picture frames. You could also join a swap group, like these listed on meetup.com or on flickr. Before you go, check out our tips for effective bartering.
This tip comes courtesy of a clever coworker, who always keeps an assortment of Tupperware at her desk. Whenever there's a work happy hour or party where there will inevitably be more food than people, she makes a beeline for the Tupperware and packages up all the leftovers before they get to the garbage. This way, a veggie platter and shrimp tray become the makings of tomorrow's stir-fry dinner. I employed a similar method in college at huge university-wide picnics, where I'd stash leftover soda cans in a backpack. Intercept food before it makes its way to the trash, and you're a far cleverer freegan.
Look on the Web for free events in your city or town—a newspaper's listings or city guide will tell you where they are. If you take advantage of free concerts, street festivals, outdoor film showings, and other events, you'll pick up new interests and also have more money for paying the bills—or to put toward eco-friendly purchases, like organic products. Search a local listing, or a site like eventful.com, for the keyword free.
Thursday
Freegans Invade CosmoGIRL! Magazine
Me, a Dumpster Diver, in CosmoGIRL! Magazine?
This is the strange, but true story of how I ended up in CosmoGIRL! Magazine's September 2008 issue. I'm involved with Freeganism and dumpster diving. I've been dumpster diving for years and I also helped organize workshops on it at Wesleyan for the annual Food Politics Week.
I work (and play) with a group of New York City activists who identify as Freegans and who contribute to Freegan living spaces, events, services, and a popular website dedicated to promoting Freeganism in the U.S., www.freegan.info.
The Freegans in NYC have been spotted in the mainstream media several times over the past few years, with one member making it onto Oprah and another being featured in Life and Style. When the organizers who act as media coordinators for the NYC Freegan group got an inquiry from CosmoGIRL! about doing a piece on Freeganism, they jumped at the chance to expose the magazine's demographic to the philosophy and practice of Freeganism. I'm one of the youngest members of the group (and I'm, like, totally the most stylish), so a couple members asked me to be in the piece. I thought it was a silly idea, but I understood the implication very clearly: national coverage for a "fringe" movement. I agreed to take CosmoGIRL! up on the offer.
I found out later when CosmoGIRL! contacted me that I was to take a photographer from the magazine dumpster diving so that she could snap shots of me in action. The location for the photo shoot was to be Chinatown. The time was set for midday. It seemed like the worst time and place to go dumpster diving possible in the NYC area and I despaired of finding anything worthwhile. It turned out that the dumpsters we peered into were filled with nice clothes, books, shoes, cooking supplies, and a variety of other useful implements. I was pretty surprised to find so many things and pleased that the photographer would be capturing some candid moments.
She used a lot of film taking pictures of me, but only one shot made the cut: me standing atop a dumpster outside a public housing project in the Lower East Side, looking tough in my black jeans and shiny purple belt.
Naturally, all the friends I've shown the magazine to have cracked up laughing. A word to those who don't know me: I'd probably be voted "Least Likely to Be in CosmoGIRL!" -- if such a designation existed in high school year books. (And for another thing, I don't even identify anywhere close to whatever a CosmoGIRL is supposed to be! I'm gender-queer and probably one of the queerest looking people they've ever had in the magazine.)
But, despite laughing along with my friends, I have to say that I hope that the CosmoGIRL! piece does more than amuse. I hope that it exposes a generation of young consumers to Freeganism. I look forward to seeing more people, from fifteen-year-old CosmoGIRLs to young activists to suburban kids looking for fun, reclaiming trash from the curbside, the dumpster, and the local dump.
I personally think that dumpster divers are excavating the future in our society. We're seeing the effects of runaway consumption and a crisis of overproduction first-hand. It's a fascinating movement, Freeganism, and worth checking out if you're interested in environmental activism, anti-consumerism, alternative economics, and all kinds of other yummy foods-for-thought. For many activists in on this end of the spectrum, it seems that becoming a practicing Freegan is the next step towards realizing their political, social, and environmental views.
In addition to doing to the photo shoot, I submitted a short essay about Freeganism to CosmoGIRL!. For spatial considerations they cut the piece down quite a lot. Here you can read my full response to CosmoGIRL!'s inquiries about Freeganism. This is what I originally sent to them:
I got involved with Freeganism in high school in Los Angeles and I have been something of a Freegan activist throughout college (at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT). I have organized workshops on Dumpster diving and I recently finished a short documentary film on the subject of waste at wealthy colleges, Operation Ivy: Dumpster Diving at Elite Colleges. I started writing a book in one of my classes this Spring with the working title: Trash Tells: Waste, Recycling, and Redemption in America. I’m writing about what our trash says about our society and how we can rethink (and hopefully reduce) waste, over-consumption, and disposability.
This year I co-coordinated a waste-reduction program at my college called Waste Not! Our team of students collects stuff that students would likely discard at the end of finals week, sorts it, and stores it in a building on campus. At the beginning of the Spring semester, we’ll hold a huge tag sale so that students can buy back stuff they need for their dorms (lamps, alarm clocks, rugs…) for a cheaper price. We’ll donate the proceeds to local organizations. Last year, we donated hundreds of dollars to a local food pantry and an environmental organization.
Freeganism is a portmanteau, a pun on the words “free” and “vegan.” While it’s an amusing word, it has some important meanings for me and other people who have chosen the freegan way of life. We believe that people should be able to meet their basic needs without harming the environment, other people, or animals. We see shopping as a potentially political act, and at least a social act, within a global, corporate consumer culture. We live in a consumer culture dependent on over-consumption and waste. Freegans reduce waste by reclaiming, repairing, and refashioning discarded items and consuming what would otherwise be thrown away, in turn decreasing the need to produce and purchase new items.
Many of my close friends are skilled at remaking discarded stuff into all kinds of marvelous ‘new’ things. A few of my friends circuit-bend old children’s toys to make ‘new’ electronic instruments. My friend, Katie Shelly, makes jewelry from trashed computer circuit boards. Several of my friends are involved with the Freegan Bike Workshop in Brooklyn, a dingy and amazingly friendly place where you can fix up your bike with spare parts and supplies for, you guessed it, free. Many of my friends show me what the D.I.Y. ethic means every week, whether you want to describe what they do ‘Freeganism’ or ‘Dumpster diving’ and I’m inspired to keep on finding new uses for old things and spreading not just an anti-consumerist message but a pro-active practice of trash reclamation and waste reduction.
** I should mention as a side note that the word “Dumpster” is capitalized in many texts because it actually refers to a proprietary model of trash can developed by two guys named the Dempster brothers.
FREEGANS IN THE MEDIA
Adam Weissman on Life and Style TV http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqHhQGI-5KY
Madeline on Oprahhttp://www.oprah.com/slideshow/oprahshow/oprahshow1_ss_20080227/1
This is the strange, but true story of how I ended up in CosmoGIRL! Magazine's September 2008 issue. I'm involved with Freeganism and dumpster diving. I've been dumpster diving for years and I also helped organize workshops on it at Wesleyan for the annual Food Politics Week.
I work (and play) with a group of New York City activists who identify as Freegans and who contribute to Freegan living spaces, events, services, and a popular website dedicated to promoting Freeganism in the U.S., www.freegan.info.
The Freegans in NYC have been spotted in the mainstream media several times over the past few years, with one member making it onto Oprah and another being featured in Life and Style. When the organizers who act as media coordinators for the NYC Freegan group got an inquiry from CosmoGIRL! about doing a piece on Freeganism, they jumped at the chance to expose the magazine's demographic to the philosophy and practice of Freeganism. I'm one of the youngest members of the group (and I'm, like, totally the most stylish), so a couple members asked me to be in the piece. I thought it was a silly idea, but I understood the implication very clearly: national coverage for a "fringe" movement. I agreed to take CosmoGIRL! up on the offer.
I found out later when CosmoGIRL! contacted me that I was to take a photographer from the magazine dumpster diving so that she could snap shots of me in action. The location for the photo shoot was to be Chinatown. The time was set for midday. It seemed like the worst time and place to go dumpster diving possible in the NYC area and I despaired of finding anything worthwhile. It turned out that the dumpsters we peered into were filled with nice clothes, books, shoes, cooking supplies, and a variety of other useful implements. I was pretty surprised to find so many things and pleased that the photographer would be capturing some candid moments.
She used a lot of film taking pictures of me, but only one shot made the cut: me standing atop a dumpster outside a public housing project in the Lower East Side, looking tough in my black jeans and shiny purple belt.
Naturally, all the friends I've shown the magazine to have cracked up laughing. A word to those who don't know me: I'd probably be voted "Least Likely to Be in CosmoGIRL!" -- if such a designation existed in high school year books. (And for another thing, I don't even identify anywhere close to whatever a CosmoGIRL is supposed to be! I'm gender-queer and probably one of the queerest looking people they've ever had in the magazine.)
But, despite laughing along with my friends, I have to say that I hope that the CosmoGIRL! piece does more than amuse. I hope that it exposes a generation of young consumers to Freeganism. I look forward to seeing more people, from fifteen-year-old CosmoGIRLs to young activists to suburban kids looking for fun, reclaiming trash from the curbside, the dumpster, and the local dump.
I personally think that dumpster divers are excavating the future in our society. We're seeing the effects of runaway consumption and a crisis of overproduction first-hand. It's a fascinating movement, Freeganism, and worth checking out if you're interested in environmental activism, anti-consumerism, alternative economics, and all kinds of other yummy foods-for-thought. For many activists in on this end of the spectrum, it seems that becoming a practicing Freegan is the next step towards realizing their political, social, and environmental views.
In addition to doing to the photo shoot, I submitted a short essay about Freeganism to CosmoGIRL!. For spatial considerations they cut the piece down quite a lot. Here you can read my full response to CosmoGIRL!'s inquiries about Freeganism. This is what I originally sent to them:
I got involved with Freeganism in high school in Los Angeles and I have been something of a Freegan activist throughout college (at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT). I have organized workshops on Dumpster diving and I recently finished a short documentary film on the subject of waste at wealthy colleges, Operation Ivy: Dumpster Diving at Elite Colleges. I started writing a book in one of my classes this Spring with the working title: Trash Tells: Waste, Recycling, and Redemption in America. I’m writing about what our trash says about our society and how we can rethink (and hopefully reduce) waste, over-consumption, and disposability.
This year I co-coordinated a waste-reduction program at my college called Waste Not! Our team of students collects stuff that students would likely discard at the end of finals week, sorts it, and stores it in a building on campus. At the beginning of the Spring semester, we’ll hold a huge tag sale so that students can buy back stuff they need for their dorms (lamps, alarm clocks, rugs…) for a cheaper price. We’ll donate the proceeds to local organizations. Last year, we donated hundreds of dollars to a local food pantry and an environmental organization.
Freeganism is a portmanteau, a pun on the words “free” and “vegan.” While it’s an amusing word, it has some important meanings for me and other people who have chosen the freegan way of life. We believe that people should be able to meet their basic needs without harming the environment, other people, or animals. We see shopping as a potentially political act, and at least a social act, within a global, corporate consumer culture. We live in a consumer culture dependent on over-consumption and waste. Freegans reduce waste by reclaiming, repairing, and refashioning discarded items and consuming what would otherwise be thrown away, in turn decreasing the need to produce and purchase new items.
Many of my close friends are skilled at remaking discarded stuff into all kinds of marvelous ‘new’ things. A few of my friends circuit-bend old children’s toys to make ‘new’ electronic instruments. My friend, Katie Shelly, makes jewelry from trashed computer circuit boards. Several of my friends are involved with the Freegan Bike Workshop in Brooklyn, a dingy and amazingly friendly place where you can fix up your bike with spare parts and supplies for, you guessed it, free. Many of my friends show me what the D.I.Y. ethic means every week, whether you want to describe what they do ‘Freeganism’ or ‘Dumpster diving’ and I’m inspired to keep on finding new uses for old things and spreading not just an anti-consumerist message but a pro-active practice of trash reclamation and waste reduction.
** I should mention as a side note that the word “Dumpster” is capitalized in many texts because it actually refers to a proprietary model of trash can developed by two guys named the Dempster brothers.
FREEGANS IN THE MEDIA
Adam Weissman on Life and Style TV http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqHhQGI-5KY
Madeline on Oprahhttp://www.oprah.com/slideshow/oprahshow/oprahshow1_ss_20080227/1
Friday
Dumpster Diving for Dinner
Half of a “nutrition bar” sat before me on the wobbly café table. I couldn’t eat the rest because it was oily yet granular but also couldn’t force myself to throw it out. I had arranged to meet freegans at the Other Side coffeehouse on 30th and Lincoln. If they saw me toss out good food, they’d probably think, yeah, another wasteful American. Glancing around to make sure they hadn’t arrived, I wadded the bar up in its foil wrapper and whisked it into an overfilled trash can.
My friend Casey had arranged for us to meet the freegans to get the lowdown on their cause, and they’d agreed to take us along with them on their Dumpster-diving route. It was near midnight now. People buzzed about the café, sipping coffees and biting cookies.
“Maybe that’s them,” Casey said, pointing to a group of young men. “They look like they dig in the trash.”
We asked. Wrong guys.
“Maybe that group over there?”
“With the girl?” Casey said, unconvinced. “In an ivory angora sweater?”
“I guess you’re right.” White fuzz was wholly inappropriate for picking through garbage. “Let’s sit down and wait,” I suggested. “I think we’ll know them when we see them.”
From a wordy freegan website (freegan.info), part of their definition of a freegan goes:
“Freeganism is a total boycott of an economic system where the profit motive has eclipsed ethical considerations and where massively complex systems of productions ensure that all the products we buy will have detrimental impacts most of which we may never even consider. Thus, instead of avoiding the purchase of products from one bad company only to support another, we avoid buying anything to the greatest degree we are able.”
In other words, they don’t like to purchase things because they don’t want to support unethical production means, wastefulness, and rampant consumption. The word “freegan” is a portmanteau, combined from the words “free” and “vegan,” a “vegan” being someone who won’t eat or use products involved with animal harm. A “freegan” is someone who won’t eat or use products unless someone else has already discarded it. (They do this to the best of their ability — it’s gotta be kind of tough.)
I really wanted the freegans to surprise me. I hoped for that “And now a very special Facts of Life” quality that teaches us that we “can’t judge a book by its cover.” It’s not all that implausible. I myself am covered in tattoos, normally wear ill-fitting and cheap clothes, and look like what one might categorize as “dim-witted, incredulous, and worried.” But I’ve studied modern, classical, and contemporary art in the museums of 14 different European countries. So I really wanted that from these guys.
Oh, how I’d hoped that they’d be clean, groomed, wealthy, and healthy. I wanted them to come into the shop, set their rugby ball down, show me their last paycheck for starring in a toothpaste commercial, and roll their sleeves up so we could get down to the business of arm wrestling and long jumping. Alas. Alas. They passed our table, and we knew from the disheveled hair, greasy T-shirts, and aroma that they were our freegans.
I want to be nice to the guys because, as I was to find out shortly, they are all quite affable. But, if you imagine what four twentysomething males who dig in the trash for food look like, you’ve got them. They look exactly the way you think they do. Also, imagine what those trash-digging young men would smell like. And bingo.
Casey and I were a bit nervous. We were unsure of what exactly was taboo in this community, what we could talk about and what we couldn’t.
“Have you guys already been out tonight…um, Dumpster diving?” I asked, not knowing the proper term, trying to break the ice, and attempting to interpret the bouquet.
“No,” they each answered.
“Oh, um. Sorry,” I said. Still feeling pressure to put everyone at ease with some mindless chatter, I asked, “So, are these specially designated clothes for…digging in trash?”
“No,” they each answered, then glanced down at their shirts.
I wanted to cry I was so uncomfortable. I turned to Casey and mouthed, “Help…me.”
“So what do you guys do?” she blurted. Oh, thank God!
Turns out, one of them is a graphic designer, and the others work at an organic, vegan, and raw restaurant. The restaurant uses fresh foods and the employees don’t rummage in other outlets’ garbage to get the ingredients, but still, these guys were seriously grubby. I wrote the name of the restaurant in my book with a “NEVER EAT HERE!” note in the margin.
“Okay, what do you guys call what we’re going to do tonight?” I finally asked.
They preferred the term “Dumpstering,” although they sprinkled into the conversation “Dumpster diving” and just plain old “diving.” Tom, unofficial spokesman for this group, said, “Shopping at D-Mart,” which I thought was the best. But they didn’t use it often.
After getting all their names and ages, I told them I wouldn’t use their real identities. “No, it’s okay,” they all agreed. “You can use our real names.”
“Really?”
They didn’t mind. What they wanted me to assure them of was that I wouldn’t name specifically which stores, locations, and trash bins we’d be visiting in our night of Dumpstering.
“Is it because it’s illegal and you might get a ticket or something?” I asked.
“No,” Tom said. “It’s because, you know, you’ll have this awesome Dumpster, where you just get all kinds of food and stuff. One week it’s fine, the next week there’s a fence around it, there are locks all over it, it’s chained up.”
They were also concerned that if I named the location of an “awesome Dumpster,” there might arise competition in the picking over of leavings. You know how it is when you find a nice little restaurant. If word gets out, the place becomes clogged with newcomers and the quality of the food spirals downward. Same principle.
Regarding the legality of Dumpster diving, they were unsure. The consensus among the group was “Trash is trash. It’s discarded and doesn’t belong to anyone.”
There’s a Supreme Court ruling that freegan and Dumpster-diving “junk dealer” websites fondly cite. The case is California v. Greenwood of 1988. In it, Investigator Jenny Stracner of the Laguna Beach Police asked a trash collector to bring her the garbage of Billy Greenwood. In the trash, Investigator Stracner found drug paraphernalia and with that as evidence petitioned a judge for a search warrant of Greenwood’s apartment, which turned up more drug evidence.
The Supreme Court found that police going through your trash is not a violation of your Constitutional rights to privacy as protected by the Fourth Amendment. The Court said that Greenwood left his trash on the curb for pickup, essentially giving it away. They also noted that it is common knowledge that trash set outside of private property is “readily accessible to animals, children, scavengers, snoops, and other members of the public.” I like that the Supreme Court said “scavengers and snoops.” It has a nostalgic and romantic ring to it.
My friend Casey had arranged for us to meet the freegans to get the lowdown on their cause, and they’d agreed to take us along with them on their Dumpster-diving route. It was near midnight now. People buzzed about the café, sipping coffees and biting cookies.
“Maybe that’s them,” Casey said, pointing to a group of young men. “They look like they dig in the trash.”
We asked. Wrong guys.
“Maybe that group over there?”
“With the girl?” Casey said, unconvinced. “In an ivory angora sweater?”
“I guess you’re right.” White fuzz was wholly inappropriate for picking through garbage. “Let’s sit down and wait,” I suggested. “I think we’ll know them when we see them.”
From a wordy freegan website (freegan.info), part of their definition of a freegan goes:
“Freeganism is a total boycott of an economic system where the profit motive has eclipsed ethical considerations and where massively complex systems of productions ensure that all the products we buy will have detrimental impacts most of which we may never even consider. Thus, instead of avoiding the purchase of products from one bad company only to support another, we avoid buying anything to the greatest degree we are able.”
In other words, they don’t like to purchase things because they don’t want to support unethical production means, wastefulness, and rampant consumption. The word “freegan” is a portmanteau, combined from the words “free” and “vegan,” a “vegan” being someone who won’t eat or use products involved with animal harm. A “freegan” is someone who won’t eat or use products unless someone else has already discarded it. (They do this to the best of their ability — it’s gotta be kind of tough.)
I really wanted the freegans to surprise me. I hoped for that “And now a very special Facts of Life” quality that teaches us that we “can’t judge a book by its cover.” It’s not all that implausible. I myself am covered in tattoos, normally wear ill-fitting and cheap clothes, and look like what one might categorize as “dim-witted, incredulous, and worried.” But I’ve studied modern, classical, and contemporary art in the museums of 14 different European countries. So I really wanted that from these guys.
Oh, how I’d hoped that they’d be clean, groomed, wealthy, and healthy. I wanted them to come into the shop, set their rugby ball down, show me their last paycheck for starring in a toothpaste commercial, and roll their sleeves up so we could get down to the business of arm wrestling and long jumping. Alas. Alas. They passed our table, and we knew from the disheveled hair, greasy T-shirts, and aroma that they were our freegans.
I want to be nice to the guys because, as I was to find out shortly, they are all quite affable. But, if you imagine what four twentysomething males who dig in the trash for food look like, you’ve got them. They look exactly the way you think they do. Also, imagine what those trash-digging young men would smell like. And bingo.
Casey and I were a bit nervous. We were unsure of what exactly was taboo in this community, what we could talk about and what we couldn’t.
“Have you guys already been out tonight…um, Dumpster diving?” I asked, not knowing the proper term, trying to break the ice, and attempting to interpret the bouquet.
“No,” they each answered.
“Oh, um. Sorry,” I said. Still feeling pressure to put everyone at ease with some mindless chatter, I asked, “So, are these specially designated clothes for…digging in trash?”
“No,” they each answered, then glanced down at their shirts.
I wanted to cry I was so uncomfortable. I turned to Casey and mouthed, “Help…me.”
“So what do you guys do?” she blurted. Oh, thank God!
Turns out, one of them is a graphic designer, and the others work at an organic, vegan, and raw restaurant. The restaurant uses fresh foods and the employees don’t rummage in other outlets’ garbage to get the ingredients, but still, these guys were seriously grubby. I wrote the name of the restaurant in my book with a “NEVER EAT HERE!” note in the margin.
“Okay, what do you guys call what we’re going to do tonight?” I finally asked.
They preferred the term “Dumpstering,” although they sprinkled into the conversation “Dumpster diving” and just plain old “diving.” Tom, unofficial spokesman for this group, said, “Shopping at D-Mart,” which I thought was the best. But they didn’t use it often.
After getting all their names and ages, I told them I wouldn’t use their real identities. “No, it’s okay,” they all agreed. “You can use our real names.”
“Really?”
They didn’t mind. What they wanted me to assure them of was that I wouldn’t name specifically which stores, locations, and trash bins we’d be visiting in our night of Dumpstering.
“Is it because it’s illegal and you might get a ticket or something?” I asked.
“No,” Tom said. “It’s because, you know, you’ll have this awesome Dumpster, where you just get all kinds of food and stuff. One week it’s fine, the next week there’s a fence around it, there are locks all over it, it’s chained up.”
They were also concerned that if I named the location of an “awesome Dumpster,” there might arise competition in the picking over of leavings. You know how it is when you find a nice little restaurant. If word gets out, the place becomes clogged with newcomers and the quality of the food spirals downward. Same principle.
Regarding the legality of Dumpster diving, they were unsure. The consensus among the group was “Trash is trash. It’s discarded and doesn’t belong to anyone.”
There’s a Supreme Court ruling that freegan and Dumpster-diving “junk dealer” websites fondly cite. The case is California v. Greenwood of 1988. In it, Investigator Jenny Stracner of the Laguna Beach Police asked a trash collector to bring her the garbage of Billy Greenwood. In the trash, Investigator Stracner found drug paraphernalia and with that as evidence petitioned a judge for a search warrant of Greenwood’s apartment, which turned up more drug evidence.
The Supreme Court found that police going through your trash is not a violation of your Constitutional rights to privacy as protected by the Fourth Amendment. The Court said that Greenwood left his trash on the curb for pickup, essentially giving it away. They also noted that it is common knowledge that trash set outside of private property is “readily accessible to animals, children, scavengers, snoops, and other members of the public.” I like that the Supreme Court said “scavengers and snoops.” It has a nostalgic and romantic ring to it.
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