Dumpster Diving: It's What's for Dinner

Far be it my place to judge others' way of life. I am firmly of the mind that one should live whatever lifestyle one chooses so long as it does not physically or mentally harm others; especially my family or I. There is something I find peculiar in our Western way of life however. There seems to be an increasing number of people who feel tremendous guilt over the society we've collectively built and the way we live. To be sure, it is sometimes decadent, especially when compared to the billions of souls that live hand to mouth or scavenge for their daily bread. There is also much waste in our society--food, materials, energy--you name it. Excessive waste is bound to be prevalent when one lives in a land of plenty. Though a point never discussed by guilt-ridden Westerners is that we have built and enjoy exactly the society we deserve. It is not our failing that others have not prospered as we have. Wealth creation is not a zero-sum game. Abiding by the Rule of Law, and all the stability that follows, is not so complicated that it can only be understood in the West.

It is not difficult to observe movements or lifestyles taken to extremes in this day and age. After all, a by-product of a society where virtually every material comfort is available with little to no effort is ample free-time; and there are as many ways to spend free-time as there are David Hasselhoff albums in a landfill. As I stated before, there is an abundance of waste generated in our society, but we're getting better. Today more items are made from compostable/recyclable materials than yesterday. Tomorrow there will be even more. Happily, it seems the overall consciousness of how much waste we generate has been raised. This means that someday, freegans will have to find another way to spend their ample free-time.

Today, the New York Times brings us the following article that profiles a group of people that are busy going through dumpsters full of cast-offs from recently graduated NYU students:

The site, which provides information and listings for the small but growing subculture of anticonsumerists who call themselves freegans — the term derives from vegans, the vegetarians who forsake all animal products, as many freegans also do — is the closest thing their movement has to an official voice. And for those like Ms. Elia and Ms. Kalish, it serves as a guide to negotiating life, and making a home, in a world they see as hostile to their values.

Freegans are scavengers of the developed world, living off consumer waste in an effort to minimize their support of corporations and their impact on the planet, and to distance themselves from what they see as out-of-control consumerism. They forage through supermarket trash and eat the slightly bruised produce or just-expired canned goods that are routinely thrown out, and negotiate gifts of surplus food from sympathetic stores and restaurants.

Modern day hunters and gathers--a romantic notion indeed. It begs the question though--if not for corporate producers and consumerists, for what would freegans forage?

They dress in castoff clothes and furnish their homes with items found on the street; at freecycle.org, where users post unwanted items; and at so-called freemeets, flea markets where no money is exchanged. Some claim to hold themselves to rigorous standards. “If a person chooses to live an ethical lifestyle it’s not enough to be vegan, they need to absent themselves from capitalism,” said Adam Weissman, 29, who started freegan.info four years ago and is the movement’s de facto spokesman.

Freeganism dates to the mid-’90s, and grew out of the antiglobalization and environmental movements, as well as groups like Food Not Bombs, a network of small organizations that serve free vegetarian and vegan food to the hungry, much of it salvaged from food market trash. It also has echoes of groups like the Diggers, an anarchist street theater troupe based in Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco in the 1960’s, which gave away food and social services.

What turns me off about groups like this is that they inevitably have a political bend. It's not enough to simply live their chosen lifestyle quietly, they have to create a movement and carry a banner.

Many freegans are predictably young and far to the left politically, like Ms. Elia, the 17-year-old, who lives with her father in Manhattan. She said she became a freegan both for environmental reasons and because “I’m not down with capitalism.”

I hope they interview Ms. Elia in 10 years when she's 27 years old--assuming she does not succumb to botulism or salmonella poisoning in the meantime. I'd be curious to see where she is in her life; and if she's still not "down" with capitalism.

It’s not that freeganism doesn’t require serious commitment. For freegans, who believe that the production and transport of every product contributes to economic and social injustice, usually in multiple ways, any interaction with the marketplace is fraught. And for some freegans in particular — for instance, Madeline Nelson, who until recently was living an upper-middle-class Manhattan life with all the attendant conveniences and focus on luxury goods — choosing this way of life involves a considerable, even radical, transformation.

Every product transported and purchased contributes to social injustice--usually in multiple ways. I 'd love to see that cause and effect flowchart.

After a year of progressively scaling back — no more shopping at Eileen Fisher, no more commuting by means other than a bike — Ms. Nelson, who had a two-bedroom apartment with a mortgage in Greenwich Village, quit her job in 2005 to devote herself full-time to political activism and freeganism.

She sold her apartment, put some money into savings, and bought a one-bedroom in Flatbush, Brooklyn, that she owns outright.

“My whole point is not to be paying into corporate America, and I hated paying a big loan to a bank,” she said while fixing lunch in her kitchen one recent afternoon. The meal — potato and watercress soup and crackers and cheese — had been made entirely from refuse left outside various grocery stores in Manhattan and Brooklyn.

I am sure Ms. Nelson gives thanks each day to corporate America for providing the opportunity for her to take out a mortgage on an apartment she was later able to sell at a profit in such a blatantly capitalistic fashion. Certainly she appreciates the stability of the system that allows her to store her money in a savings account earning interest; and even insures that money up to $100,000 against any calamity.

But isn’t she depriving herself unnecessarily? And what’s so bad about buying books, anyway? “I do have some mixed feelings,” Ms. Nelson said. “It’s always hard to give up class privilege. But freegans would argue that the capitalist system is not sustainable. You’re exploiting resources.” She added, “Most people work 40-plus hours a week at jobs they don’t like to buy things they don’t need.”

Class privilege, like living in New York City? And I wouldn't give up on the capitalist system just yet. It's been around since Ahmed discovered if he lit a fire on the sand he could make glass and sell it in the bazaar. And finally, Ms. Nelson's anti-consumerist crystal ball confirms that "most people" hate their jobs but work anyhow so they can waste their money on stuff they really don't need. I know that's why I go to the office every day.

I agree that we live in a hyper-consumer society. I do not need a designer coffee shop on every street corner. I do not require another outlet mall out by the highway. I am not happy to see advertisements plastered in every empty nook and cranny. I grimace when I get a delivery from Pottery Barn and there's a 4'x4' box of packing material protecting a table cloth. So I don't buy coffee on every street corner; I don't stop at that outlet mall out by the highway; I ignore ads that are placed everywhere I look; I recycle the box and packing material and go about my life; and that's all I do. Oh the guilt. I think I'll go play outside until I feel better.

In many parts of the world, the freegan movement would not be recognized as a movement at all; it would simply be called "survival". I wonder how many people in the world would be willing to take up the lives many of these freegans formerly lived before they indulged their spasm of Western guilt? In the end, I am left thinking that the freegan movement, like so many others, is just another form of mental onanism.