Could you live a freegan life-style?
Posted by Isabella on Feb 27, 2008 · Member since Jan 2002 · 117 posts
I was just watching Oprah and she did a show on "freegans." It was really interesting how people get food, household and clothing items from dumpsters, although many of these people were professionals and could afford to buy their own food. This is a statement against the consumerism of the North American life-style. So what do you think about this? Could you live like this?
I know I'd starve to death if we tried that where I live but could probably get enough clothing and possibly household items free or second-hand from goodwill centers. I do often use hand-me-down clothing, especially since I'm retired.
It was the policy of the grocery store I used to work at to compact all the thrown away food. I always thought it was a huge waste considering we always had homeless people coming in in the middle of the night to get warm and to return pop cans for food. Although the people who worked in the store's gas station would gather all the leftover hotdogs/polish sausage at the end of the day and give them to a man who would take them to the shelter for the guys living there.
As far as me...I don't know if I could do it. I've got a serious hang up about expiration dates ever since I got food poisoning from old salad dressing.
Any thoughts on a GTG, I can supply juice.
Any thoughts on a GTG, I can supply juice.
hey, didn't you look different in your last avatar? :hrmm:
When I worked in the deli at Kroger, at the end of the day, if I got anybody who came in and asked for something, like fried chicken which got thrown away at the end of the day, I would weight it, then throw in a few extra pieces just so I wouldn't have to throw them away. I had a couple of regulars who always came in just before closing when I was working, I would charge them for like two pieces, but I actually put in most of whatever I had left without going over board. I knew I would get fired if I ever got caught doing this, and I told the customer this too, so they never said anything. I was an omni at the time, so I would also sneak home fried chicken as well, and I would also take home "ends", like the ends of lunch meat and cheese that got thrown away. I would eat the cheese but my cats loved the lunch meat. Luckily I was never caught, but sometimes I wonder if they knew, they just never said anything. I mean, I was a broke as hell college student, living off of ramen noodles and boxed macaroni and cheese. Fried chicken from the deli was a wonderful treat!
Any thoughts on a GTG, I can supply juice.
hey, didn't you look different in your last avatar? :hrmm:
yup, changed it. hopefully for the better ; )
I'm all for living frugally, but I don't think I would be able to stomach any food that came from a dumpster. I do think it's a shame that we are such a wasteful society and it frosts my patooties that there are so many starving people in the world while we throw so much away. My mom used to have a connection with a man who had connections with local grocers and she would frequently get carloads of food for abused women and their families. Sometimes if you ask, they will give it to you before they toss it.
My grandfather has been picking up truckloads of food from our small town local grocer for about 2-3 years now. He knows when they are tossing the food so he gets there right when they are about to dump it. He has been able to bless a lot of needy people in our neighborhood this way. Some of the food is maybe a day away from expiring or something like that. If I HAD to live a freegan lifestyle, I would do it. I used to work in the cafeteria and in the catering department in college. I fed a lot of my dormmates and gained a lot of friends that way. I used to work 500 person banquets and the chef would make more than needed(of course). All of the extra food would be split up by all of the workers at the end of the night. We ate like kings and queens. Well, when you are used to eating tuna and sandwiches all the time baked chicken with all the trimmings was a gourmet meal.
The other day we dumpsters a crate of wine, a huge amount of vegies (made heaps of soup) and a giant barrell of Chuppa-Chup lollipops.
On the night that there was a birthday party.
It was pretty cool.
I don't think I could dig food out from a dumpster, just due to mental images after working with dumpsters that smell SO bad. But I have to say, it would be nice to see all that food mulched down and turned into compost or something for produce farms. At least whatever didn't contain animal products could probably be put back into the land.
Cause it really does pain me how wasteful our society has become. I probably put out one bag of garbage every two weeks. Everything else goes into compost, or recycling.
I'm really trying to reduce.
Any of you freegans heard about this UK game show?
http://www.readysteadyskip.org.uk/
Dumpster cuisine!
I just did the math on my last odwalla dumpsta hustlin
My half was $266 retail!!!!
There were so many blueberry b monsters!
http://img104.imageshack.us/img104/7061/img9562ul2.jpg
I just did the math on my last odwalla dumpsta hustlin
My half was $266 retail!!!!
There were so many blueberry b monsters!
great googley moogley, kannas! :o thats sweet!
btw...why are your naners in the fridge?
hehe I like 'em cold and it pretty hot here...
i just realized how personal fridges are... like a peak into ones medicine cabinet.
Oh forgot to mention the Acai juice on the door that was part of the hustle too.
Really! you need to put a "censored" bar over that open door! 8-)
wait...its *that* warm in jersey? well, in that case, stick in the fridge w/ pb and a drizzle o chocolate... :P
ok, i just really want some naners.
(better lock that fridge...) >:D
ha! I might not complain if a band of vegwebbers stormed my place... and ransacked it of my hard labor.
It would be quite the story.
I try to live as "freegan" as possible, but only when necessary. I dumpster dive from time to time whether for food behind the local health food stores and bakeries or behind clothing or art stores and other cool places.
the record store i work at throws away tons of records. they are always shitty and unplayable, yet i always feel so bad doing it. butif we had a free bin, it would probably have 10,000 unplayable records in it that no one wants! part of me wants people to dumpster them, but i'm intelligent enough to know that those people would probably just walk right in the store and try to sell them to us. it's sad to say, but i've become so callous about these records. i want to post a sign on the dumpster that says, "don't even try. it really is garbage."
I lived freegan to an extent for about a month when I was living with some friends in new york. I went there with literally like 40 bucks and that lasted me about a week and a half. The rest of the time I either hit up the urban gardens in either Brooklyn or Harlem, lived off of beer we snagged at parties, or hit up the dumpster behind a yummy veg friendly restarant that my friend worked at. He would leave it unlocked and wrap up the stuff he wanted us to take and new was ok to eat. Why not just take it home straight from work? Apparently at that places and a lot of other ones you can't take food home that you don't pay for even if their going to throw it out. What a bunch of bull shit!
Idiots would rather let good food rot than let someone have a free meal. I would only dumpster for food if it was a situation like the one we had an new that the food was ok. It freaks me out to think I'm eating something someone elses spit/snot/any other fluid is on so knowing exactly which ones are ok from someone I trusted was awesome. The urban gardens are great though. You can go in and take whatever you want. I tried to put some work in ( you can volunteer) to help keep the balance. If all cities grew there own food and made it available to people who didn't have any then the hunger situation in America would vastly decrease.
That said I really hate things going to waste. I have been known to curb shop,free store it, use stuff people threw away to make art. I really hate generic mass produced crap. I don't understand why everyone elects to have more crap made when we can't find a place for all the stuff thats here already. If people were less shallow, led by media and had less of their self worth tied into the things they own then maybe we wouldn't have such a polluted, starving, sad world. To break my dependence on capitalist crap I grow as much of my own food as I can, never work a corporate job, wild craft, DIY and simply ask. If you see something that looks like its going to be thrown away then ask if you can have it (plant stores especially). My mom and I got a bunch of free flowers/herbs/veggies that a plant store was throwing away and just let us have.
I think there is something important in freeganism. People need to realize that it is possible to survive with out overly expensive mass produced crap that was probably poorly manufactured and created by some poor foreign factory worker with a 20 hour day. I'm not saying everyone should dumpster dive for all their food always just that people need to take their lives and impact into their own hands. If we make it clear to advertising/corporations that we are not going to accept this crap under these conditions then they will have to change. People should take the ideals of freeganism to heart, it really would help.
PS: mulletjunky: Why not donate the records to an art store/art class or craigslist them. There are plenty of awesome things you can make out of an old record. I'm sure somebody somewhere could use them.
I'd draw the line at food. I can't even deal with food a day over it's expiration date. I think I would vomit if I ate food from a dumpster :-[. But it's just my personal opinion, if other people can do it, more power to them, they have a lot more courage than me and are probably making a better difference in this world than me ^-^
PS: mulletjunky: Why not donate the records to an art store/art class or craigslist them. There are plenty of awesome things you can make out of an old record. I'm sure somebody somewhere could use them.
oh i totally hear you on the art class thing. we had some people one time say they wanted some records, so we saved up until we had four huge crates. this was in about a week. of course, they never showed up. plus there is just such a huge volume. i always look through and take what i want or know some people will use, but if we were to save them up in case someone actually someday came to get them, we'd run out of storage quick. and again, you'd be surprised about people trying to come back at a different time and sell them to us.
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