Today hasn’t been busy at all. Its been raining on and off and besides going to get a few items for the fish I have been just wtaching either Lifetime or CNN about the Swine Flu outbreak. Fortunately no one has died from it in America and everyone in the U.S. seems to be recovering so I’m not too worried about it right now.
I finished my painting and then started dabbling online for examples of extreme frugalness and I found this:
http://consumerist.com/consumer/debt/debt-drives-student-to-live-in-pickup-truck-240081.php
It reminds me of a guy when I went to school in Santa Fe at the Institute of American Indian Arts in New Mexico, this is when they were still on the campus of the College of Santa Fe. And there was a guy camping in a tent just outside the school grounds in a wooded area and going to school during the day. He couldn’t afford to live in the dorms. I’m sure that guy was better off than all of the other student racking up debt living in the dorms.
And then I found this on Freeganism: http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2008/03/04/freegans-dumpster-diving-and-the-limits-of-frugality/
Freeganism is a lifestyle choice in which for political, social or economic reasons they choose to get and use as many things they can for free. They reject consumerism and therefore get as much as they can for free. The Freegan Lifestyle includes a few extremes like dumpster diving, or even food foragers. Some are vegans but the category is broad and includes those that do eat meat are calle Meagans but here’s another link: http://www.anhglobal.org/en/serve/stories/015
The Freegan goal is to ‘tread lightly upon the earth’, therefore they may not even live in homes but squat or build their homes out of free materials while others live in normal homes and dumpster dive for their furniture or food. Some Freegans also do not work except in harvesting or finding their own food/goods and they try their best to opt out of the consumerist life. Or in the words of the Hobo in the movie “Meet Mr. Smith”, they opt not to be a “Helot”, a slave to the system.
This is truly extreme. I can imagine its one of those extremes that though are environmentally correct are just plain too extreme for most of us. There is NO way I’m eating out of the garbage. I saw something on Planet Green where this guy was eating dandelions from someones front yard and I kept thinking…does he know who walks there dogs right at that spot??? I mean theres a difference if its in Your yard but some of the extremes are too extreme and can’t be very healthy. I mean we need to be environmental and care about what we do and our impact on the earth while staying safe!
I watched a Freegan video on YouTube found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSlDzu13ytI They got in a very nice car and were dressed very nicely to pick through items found in garbage bags then drove home. Okay, in watching this video I kept thinking, wouldn’t it be less of an impact on the earth if they had not drove in a car that uses fossil fuels to get items that were wrapped in plastic to drive back home. Why not make it yourself or go without? I think these Freegans didn’t quite get the concept of their own movement.
But while I would not walk around my neighborhood and pick at my neighbors weeds or flowers, we have foraged a few times. Mostly in Tennessee we foraged. There was a woman who showed us this house that had an apple tree overflowing over its gate to a parking lot full of ripe tiny little apples. She took Lea and I to the tree with some bags and we loaded them up, that was great. Then Lea and I found a tree that had pecans and we picked up as many as we could while walking past the house and that same woman also showed us some black walnut trees. And then here we got free apples from a Freecycle or Craigslist ad in which people were offering them as deer food and we took them and made apple juice out of them. I posted it on this blog. And I do try to Freecycle for items first before buying, so I would consider myself slightly a freegan. But not that extreme. But there are things that can be learned from it. I mean instead of driving past a perfectly good item on the side of the road, can you use it? Can you give it another life? I have done this many, many times. But the getting my food from a dumpster…ah, not so much!
What about you? What do you do? Do you consider yourself a Freegan? The Freegan label is very broad…does this lifestyle appeal to you?
Honestly, I dont see freegans as being anything more than common theives. I understand completely that there are good things being tossed in dumpsters every day, but whether we like it or not, the dumpster and it’s contents are private property. Stealing is stealing, no matter if it’s a candy bar from the convienence store, a cd from the music store, or an apple from a grocery store’s dumpster.
The name “freegan” sounds all happy and special, but it’s nothing more than a made up name to make it sound like it’s something important. It rhymes with vegan, which is a new cool and trendy way of life, therefore it too will sound new and trendy. Somehow adding this strange name to theft has made it sound like its not theft at all.
They make it sound like it’s for enviornmental reasons, which in a VERY long stretch of imagination it may be, but it’s just an excuse to do what they do. Add a tag of “enviornment” or “green” to anything, and it’s totally justifiable to some people. Anything with those labels has become trendy, and sadly, dumpster diving for food has become one of the things with that label. Not so many years ago, anyone crawling through a dumpster for food was a “hobo”,and no one in their right mind would do such a thing, but now with a friendly cute and fuzzy name, it’s for anyone who wants to jump on the bandwagon. Personally, I see it as another thing for the “modern hippies” to do. It’s nothing more than another excuse to not have a job, all that’s missing is the flower necklaces and tie die shirts.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m against all this garbage going to landfills as the next person. I think that all food waste should go to some kind of community compost so it can be re-used and returned to the earth. I can’t see where it would cost any more to set something like this up than it would to truck it to a dump/landfill. I have no problem with someone taking a perfectly good piece of furniture from the curb, I’ve taken a few things this way myself over the years.
I’m with ya on one thing though, no way would I eat something from a dumpster.
to an extent I am. I have no problems getting the items I need free off of craigs list. Honestly if I had a truck, since I am a pack rat, I would be so cluttered up. I too would not dumpster dive unless I had to. And boy, it would take me a long time to starve that low. I love finding furniture sitting by the road though and giving it a home. It is a good way to “disconnect” from materialism.
speaking of debt…the College of Santa Fe is bankrupt. Unless it can be bailed out, this is it’s last semester of operation…
I’m married to a Freegan with the best Freegan job ~ he’s a trash man. He is always calling me with “hey, can we use ___” and then he’ll ask the people if he can have it rather than take it to the dump. It AMAZES me what others will throw away. He used to pick up a commercial route and the dollar store was throwing out thousands of batteries as the packaging was misprinted – yet the batteries were perfectly fine, brand new and headed to the landfill. I get so angry to see the waste – what one family might be done with could go to really good use for another family!! So, yeah, we are freegans. I think the worst cases are the brand new, tennis shoes with the $300 price tags still attached on the box. These shoes aren’t even laced up yet. Surely SOMEONE could use them? We take whatever we can and end up donating about 90% of what we find, especially the high dollar shoes and clothes. I can’t say that I’d ever eat from a dumpster, but then again, our local grocery stores incinerate all they toss – they won’t even sell me damaged veggies for my chickens. Again, wasteful when people are going hungry – why can’t they (stores) give the food to folks who could really use it? So what if you have to cut off an imperfect spot – the rest is still good. We live in the most consummeristic country ever and now we are paying for the way we’ve been living. I say “we” because we are all in this mess together. On a side note, my husbands brother is a hard core Freegan in that he dumpster dives for everything (food too). He makes a really good living repairing computers using parts that he’s salvaged. He has no debt and is a super interesting person. We all have the depths we’re will to go to – I have friends who would NEVER garage sale shop yet they are living on the brink of financial ruin. On the other hand, my dearest older friend is a bajillionaire because she never buys anything new, except for groceries. She’s such an inspiration to me.
Chris-LOL! I agree with you. Its trendy! A few years ago and even know if someone sees you getting your food out of the garbage you were a hobo. When I was younger I knew a girl that got her clothes out of the garbage and got her food out of the garbage too. She lived in a room with her mother, they rented a room, and this lifestyle was out of circumstance but she was very much into it just like the Freegans. I saw her a few years later living in a nice apartment having gotten married and had a baby and I’m sure that was just the past for her. But some of the people that do it as a trend, they need to be careful.
Sweethearts, me too. I have even delivered some items to my friends kids for them to give it a good home. Sometimes people put out perfectly good items just because they bought another.
Forge Village, ugh, thats really sad to hear. At the time IAIA and the College of Santa Fe kids didn’t get along but that is still a very sad thing to hear.
Melissa, that is great with your hubby being able to get so much. I wish we could get some of those shoes. With Lea having nearly my mothers sized shoe, we would definately use that if we find it. They have here in Michigan and in some other states where the grocery stores take foods that are outdated but still in good condition and they donate it to the food banks. That way the food does go to someone who needs it. If someone could start up a program like that in some areas there wouldn’t be any waste of it and you wouldn’t have to pull it out of the garbage mixed up with god knows what to eat it. It would be a sanitary way to give someone that needs it food.