On Demand
Freegan in the Free World
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Is it ever okay to eat out of the trash? Amanda Taylor, "The Conscientious Objector" columnist for L Magazine, examines the politics of what we throw away.
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This is the new cool instead of being a vegan.
Watch out for needles in the trash and other unsanitary items!
People who eat out of the trash don't have any standards.
This is disgusting.
However live & let live. :)
Not me!
to build on what "Baby" said I quote the band Crucial Unit's song "Freegan Reich":
Militant against commitment,
Holier than avo-lactos ice cream is your weakness,
Cheese pizza is fine meatless.
Tote a gun in the name of a clever pun.
Every time you justify
Another animal fucking dies.
You firestorm a bakery,
Yet you'll dive their dumpster.
Sitting on a fence,
Thinking you're on a pedastol.
Forget about your morals
With your alleyway crew.
Diving many dumpsters
Eating blocks of cheese
Until a rusty needle
Gives you a disease.
I refuse to . . .
I refuse to be a member of your freegan reich.
I think about the Seinfeld, where the mother of George's girlfriend sees him eating a half eaten eclair out of the trash. George defends by saying how he ate the portion that wasn't bitten and that it was "hovering" above the trash.
This is freegan' nasty!
Emough squatters in our neighborhood - bring on the new condos!
Wow, food sounds like a great idea....not. I could understand homeless going that route but eco-freeks?
I do agree with conserving concepts of this movement, think of all the water we waste in the bathroom and kitchen and people in the city are very unaware of where these resources come from.
what about bedbugs?
It's a shame that usable and reusable items end up in the trash in such large quantities. Because there's no accountability or visible cost associated with rubbish removal, people feel they have no responsibility to find a proper home for things that other people can use.
While dumpster diving can be cool, it should be something done at second hand clothing or consumables store.
There are companies out there like Recycle Bank, which NYC could use to PAY citizens to recycle!
How does the guest compete with homeless people who also sift through dumpsters.
What's wrong with Iceberg lettuce? Snob!
Where is the "gan" in "Freegan" derived from? Does that mean if you found a pack of pork chops on the street you wouldn't eat it?
There's so much waste, so you're helping yourself, fine. But you're doing nothing to solve the problem!
Most Americans -- especially New Yorkers, won't even eat an apple with a small bruise on it, let alone not going dumpster-diving.
We lives our lives so mindlessly and throw away stuff so mindlessly. We have swallowed the consumer society so whole, without even knowing the extent, that we have gone from a society where we were proud of being thrifty to one of being ashamed of it.
It ought not to be about being fashionable; it should be about common sense and a sense of proportion and perspective of the world and history.
http://www.freecycle.org/
why don't these stores give to second harvest or some such place.
Yay! yet another thing that rich kids from the suburbs who move here can shove in our faces with a smug look.
I'm a ...( fill in the hip new thing to be here)
I used to pick up food from restaurants for Food Not Bombs. It was straight out of the kitchen - NOT from customers' plates. For the most part, this was a great way, to serve the homeless.
However, I stopped doing this when I got quite ill from some soup we made. The reason why restaurants have to throw out food each day is because it can be a health hazard.
freecycle.org--find it in your city.
Almost all of our furniture when we were growing up came from the street. My mom didn't think of it as any part of a movement or political agenda, she did it out of convenience and for the love of a great find. She had stashed away dining room table and chair sets for my brother and I when we moved out. There really is an awful lot of treasure out there.
If any of these people actually worked in a restaurant, they wouldn’t touch a restaurant dumpster with a 10 foot pole…. All kinds of cleaning products get mixed into the trash… Along with dinners that look good but couldn’t be served because they got dropped on the floor or got contaminated in one way or another.
On another note, a lot of food banks won’t take food from restaurants that are already cooked.
When I lived in Germany in the 80s, this was a common practice. Once a quarter each "garbage district" would put out their "junk." We would monitor when the "wealthy" neighborhoods had their "junking day" and furnished our apartments. It was great since I arrived with a backpack and when I left I had many things to sell and give away -- most of which were picked-up during a "junking day" adventure.
I love Amanda's column! I think you are doing great things. I am not a freegan but buy about 95% of my clothes used as well as being an avid stoop sale shopper and dumpster diver to furnish my apt. I but my food at the farmers market and CSA to support local growing. We do not need to be creating more waste and materials when there is so many useful things filling the landfills!
Wasting food is disgusting, not the wasted food itself.
There is no shame in a lifestyle that promotes conservation and minimalism. It's about time we began to reduce the tremendous waste that our consumer-driven culture has created.
I'm a techno-freegan. I get slightly outdated computers at the dump and fix 'em up good as new. They aren't state-of-the-art, but they're good enough for surfing the 'net, word processing, ripping CDs, etc. If you need a monitor and don't mind the tube CRT type, it's a gold mine. You wouldn't believe what I find on people's hard drives: tax returns, social security numbers, etc. Great stuff if I were an identity thief! There's lots of video and audio stuff out there - DVD players, stereos, etc.
Anybody who dropped out in the 60s is very familiar with this freegan movement. That was truly how one lived. Day old food, $400 vans to get around, discarded clothing. No need to work for a living-just live and enjoy.
Erin - please list an inventory of the current contents of your apartment for the scrutiny of the minimalism committee
Also, if I recall correctly, from an old Antiques Roadshow program, some lady found a chair/table/picture (can't remember which) in the trash, she took it home and then to the Roadshow. Turns out it was worth quite a lot of money!
Sounds like there actually might be potential here for freecyclers to actually save on their taxes since you can deduct donations made, thus making money from their freecycling lifestyle.
On Freeshare/Freecycle:
I am just waiting for sensible urban planners to introduce free roving van services to help ferry freecycle objects around town and to install free computer stations at public gathering spots to allow folks without home computers to join in. This would hep the environment tremendously, help usher in a new understnading of Things/material objects, and can save millions of dollars that municipalities pay for landfill.
Yoohoo!! This is great!! Glad to see people who are actually doing something about so much waste!! :)
If you haven't seen the stuff, don't knock it. We're talking about those pre-cut carrots that are STILL IN THE STYROFOAM WRAPPER, etc.
As for donating the stuff, that absolutely is a wonderful way to go. However, from my experience working in a bakery, there were a lot of items they just wouldn't accept, even though I thought they would have. Just be sure to call first.
Another option-- I worked at a channel where we had to order catering for the guests everyday and there were TONS of things left over, sandwiches still in the wrapper. Non-profits wouldn't accept them, or I didn't have the transpo to deliver them, so I bagged them and just gave them out to the local homeless guys. But this was time consuming, and just not something I could do all the time. More like a one-shot deal. But it's something.
Concerning restaurant leftovers -
when eating out from home, I always bring the leftovers back for another meal/snack.
When traveling (extensively for business), I have the restaurant wrap them up and hand them to the first homeless person I see or who asks me for change.
Dumpster-diving for food one can otherwise afford?
An interesting *statement* to make, but really ...
I used to date a "fregan" before there was such a term -- but she got tired of dumpster diving thinking that it could be a pre-cursor or a premonition of us ending up being homeless or bums. Anyway, she ended up marrying a stockbroker from Staten Island, whom she does not love, and now eating not leftover food, but still free -- from her now husband(since she's still a struggling & unemployed artist).
I got out of the whole fregan scene, and now pay for my own food. Theres a reason why those perishable food have an expiration date.
I have suffered immense criticism from my family and friends for recycling furniture and other items off of the street. My boyfriend has band me from bringing anything else home, even though I have been able to refurbish many items over the years that he has enjoyed. He often pulls the embarrassment card and will not even let me stop and look at an item if I am with him. He also will not join me in the thrift store. A campaign should be launched to help non "Garbage Grabbers" be more excepting of their recycling friends and family. This is certainly a terrible form of repression, ha ha.
Another easy thing...
My friends and I (being low-paid and also very cheap people) is have a monthly or so "hey, let's get brunch and then go to my place so everyone can try on the clothes before I take them to Salvation Army."
Uh.. I have to say that most of my clothes are my friend's hand-me-downs. (I was lucky enough that one of my friends worked at Barney's and got a lot of sample items.)
But it saves one person a trip to Salvation Army, and gets me some new (to me) duds.
Little Off Topic:
but, i've been reducing my landfill footprint by composting my kitchen scraps inside my apartment.
I bought a pound of red composting worms at the union square farmers market and a ten gallon rubbermade container and now i'm in the business of producing high quality organic fertilizer for my house plant.
Its a great science experiment you can play around with no matter how small your apartment, would be great for kids.
I used to work at a restaurant that sells both bakery goods and soups, salads, and sandwiches to order. The company would give to City Harvest, but there are restrictions that are given. Anything that is required to be refrigerated (like sandwiched and salads that are pre-prepared) can not be donated. Also, any products that had less than a days' shelf life (cream pastries and so on) could not be donated. Basically, anything that employees didn't take home went to the trash. This particular restaurant has at least 15 locations in NYC- with at least 3 bags full of wasted food per day- 7 days a week.
Hey Amanda, I'd like to know where this sandwich joint is... Read your column, glad to hear you on BL.
Freeganism isn't a "trend." I've been a grad student for a zillion years now, and it's how I live. I thrift, I scavenge, I salvage, I remake-repair-reuse.
It is not apathy that makes restaurants throw food out it is LIABILITY. Unused food, some near or past is prime holds a huge liability if it is re used or donated. People that see this as waste do not work in the industry. An unrelated illness loosely linked to free cycle food can destroy a persons business and reputation. Food costs can make or break a restaurant, throwing food out is not a sport, its delegated by Health Department rules and common sense
Wear clothes until they stand up. Cuts down water use, energy use, pollution from over laundering. The clothes last longer since each washing breaks down the clothing. Bathe less frequently, only when you start to smell or do something that gets you really dirty. Wash your hands though, and keep your loose body parts clean but you'll still save water and energy and cut pollution. Become a slobgan. It's cheap, it's lazy, it's the right thing to do.
I love how everyone gets so preachy about waste in our society.
How about your $700 and $800 hair cuts and need to buy Gucci, Louis Vitton, etc?
Why don't you get the $55.00 hair cut like the "working class" which according to millionaires is really the "lower class" and give the money for your $700 hair cut to the working poor whom are being fleeced and taken advantage of the wealthy.
If anyone listens regularly, rent stabilized tenants are being harassed by landlords. Wages are not keeping up with these fancy rents.
Get your head out of the clouds, give money back to the poor and stop the ivory tower business!!
Any way to curtail waste, alleviate the environment and help people around the world by forcing FAIR TRADE is welcome and commended.
Freeganism DOES NOT consist of only picking up thrown-away food; there are different levels of Freeganism. I, for instance, pick up used furniture and clothes plus mend my own clothes to death when in disrepair.
Freeganism requires a highly-sophisticated, multi-faceted way of thinking a lot of people "plugged to the matrix" are not willing to consider.
I run a soup kitchen in NYC but I find that schlepping around food that is less than good - outdated, over-stock and produce that retailers will not sell any more is not good for the poor and hungry and not good for the environment.
Think of the almost rotten potatoes that no professional chef could make sense of, is schlepped around by those “food rescue” organizations burring gas that’s bigger than the value of the produce.
And how do you expect those disheveled people that come into the soup kitchens and food pantries to make food out of it?
My question is regarding bio-degradable garbage bags, for those moments when you really have to throw stuff away. (Food scraps, cat litter clumps, used recyclable napkins, etc.) A company called Biobags makes huge bags, but what about bags that will work for an under-the-sink NYC garbage pail? I've been searching for this for years! I know that Organic Avenue on the LES carries this brand, but not the size us studio-dwellers really need...
I've picked up a canoe!
I’m all for salvaging clothes and furniture. But is there anyway Freegans can get Freegan health insurance from dumpsters? Because they are going to need it when they get really ill from eating contaminated food….
Away from the notion of diving for food: I'd like to suggest that as a frequent business traveller who has often dined on the dime of a client or employer, it has been my practice that I always take my leftovers from dinner and offer them to a street person I invariably meet on the walk back to the hotel. In fact, I have learned the spots in certain cities where grateful recipients dwell and will leave a anonymous offering in a neatly sealed brown paper bag to be "found" by a person who will enjoy the meal.
Even rotten fruit and veggies can be used in compost instead of being sent to the dump. My parents, who were organic gardeners in Tennessee, used to get old veggies from the local grocery to use in their compost.
Park Slope is a Freegan heaven. I've furnished an entire apartment from the streets there. I found a beautiful cedar wardrobe, a desk, chairs, a chaise lounge, enormous flat files, side tables, lamps, and endless amounts of clothes.
It was *so* much easier to do this before Craig's List! I just don't see much good stuff anymore.
not only are the freegans dependeant on the waste of capitalism but capitalism itself is reliant on the increasing production of waste. if things were not thrown away very little would need to be produced. what the freegans, dumpsterists are doing is trying to absorb some of this waste and negate themselves as contributers to more excess.
Moving to New York in 1970, I lived in Alphabet City and furnished my pad on E. 2nd St. and Avenue B entirely from the streets. It was well known in those days that the Upper East Side threw out its stuff on (I think it was) Thursdays. I came across what appears to be an old public or parochial school desk, which is now one of my favorite pieces of furniture, fitting happily among pricier items from places like Domain.
Freeganism the concept is not new. People have been picking up furniture from the curb or eating expired but still edible food for years. What's new is the idea that this behavior is somehow now part of an identity that has a name. That to me seems very new, and interesting, and ridiculous all at once.
Please warn people about picking up bedbugs with the found furniture! (not necessarily beds or mattresses!) We had an epidemic in our building and took a lot to stop it! Thanks
I have been doing this since I can remember - in fact, one of my best friends lives in Cherry Hill, NJ - and I would drive down for "trash day" in Haddonfield. I have gone home with beautiful bookcases, rocking chairs, hope chest - in fact, that area in particular is "primo."
On the other hand, where I live, our transfer station used to be a "swap center" -- that is, until the State intervened and restructured the place, intentionally eliminating our ad hoc swap area. However, the guys who work there still pick out the useable objects and put them aside for people to look through. It is not like the old days - now we practically have to "file" our dead leaves according to color, and tie up our cardboard with a bow, but it is still pretty good.
In fact, I have been furnishing my living space with "found" things since I had my first apartment - and this very same friend in NJ and I have what we call the "permanent loan system" where we circulate our property around to a circle of friends when we tire of it; and vice versa. There is also another level of goods we call "rejects" which are items that we don't care if we ever see again. It is a whole system and it works.
Thanks for this segment - and hopefully more people will become more conscious - because I am always amazed and disturbed by what people send to the crusher! If it were not for the Freegans - it would just be that much more landfill!
Ms. Taylor is advocating high food prices for everyone, tho no doubt inadvertently. The reason for so much evident waste is mass production and free-market competition, and overage is an inevitable part of this system.
The extreme alternative is returning to a hunter-gatherer economy. This certainly leaves the smallest carbon footprint. But do people really want to be pounding edible roots on logs fourteen hours a day in order to have enough calories to stay alive?
Even putting too much of the overage to free use, beyond a certain point, can raise prices, and even create overall dearth.
Your business reporter may be able to explain this better.
China and Russia are fully on-board with the mass-production, free-market approach. they seem to see it as optimal. Perhaps if people like Ms. Taylor, and the homeless, wish to live on small communes, they might feel better, and chew manioc while the rest of us buy affordable food.
Growing up in large midtown apartment buildings, we would pop our heads in the recycling room on each floor on Sundays to see if there was anything worth saving. Years later I still have a great bookshelf that I got this way.
A year ago I moved into a shoebox apt. and someone left a few bags of dishes and kitchen sundries in the common area that perfectly suited the apt.
A couple of points:
-(54) Why is Ms Taylor advocating high food prices? It sounds like she's primarily trying to take a bite out of the "liabilities" side of her overall household balance sheet and save the city a few pennies on tip fees for waste disposal. My wealthy excentric conservative Catholic uncle from Park Slope did this all over NYC for decades before he died in 1989.
- Solid waste isn't in itself bad thing or simply something "invented" in the US after the Civil War. We wouldn't have archeology if people throughout history didn't throw stuff out. On the other hand we generally throw things out far too quickly. How many computers have you gone through since 1982?
- Forget the internet. If I want to get rid of something I just leave it out on the street near my house and it will be picked up 20 minutes. Of course you would probably be ticketed for that in NYC.
-How can a restaurant be allowed to leave 50 pounds of sandwiches in a bag on the street at night. Doesn't this attract rats?
- The redemption fees on returned bottles and cans have not kept pace with inflation. Don't people understand that this is the REAL "minimum wage". People struggling to make ends meet have been collecting cans and bottle from recycling bins on my street for as long as I can remember and they are still only getting 5 cents per item in CT. The same as they were 25 years ago. These people deserve a raise!!
I have found a lot of furniture in the street or next to the dumpster. There are many evergreens in my complex. The past three years I have found large fallen limbs I use fo my XMAS tree. I call it my Charley Brown tree.
run over by a car,crutches,unable to cook,no work,several delics.near by,would it be possible to E contact Ms. Amanda TAylor for tips on when and best time to go hunting? and where the mag.?
Hi, it's Amanda from the show. Interesting to read these comments.
Gal, thanks for clearing up some of the mystery around food pick-ups by City Harvest and the like.
For all you haters out there, I'm sorry you have problems with this approach. FYI, I am a native New Yorker, not a recent suburban transplant. Not that it really matters (to me), but I've been doing this since I was a kid. My mother furnished our apartment with great curbside finds. Ahhh, the Upper East Side.
I've eaten from the trash for YEARS (going on 20) and in many different places, and I promise you I have never gotten sick. I have had food poisoning from restaurants, however, many times.
I don't think rising food prices can be put on my head: feel free to blame a "free market" system that has become too reliant on long-haul transport of food, and greedy oil companies. Or maybe blame the wholesale dismantling of rail systems, which could have taken the edge off of truck transport costs.
Had we adopted different policies, we might also not have let much of the productive agricultural land near New York be turned into housing developments, and we might be able to get a lot more food that didn't need to be transported thousands of miles, using tons of fuel.
ps. anyone wanting to contact me feel free to write editor (at)thelmagazine.com
thanks!
I find Freegan to be the most annoying movement to come about lately. Living off the waste of society does nothing to cure the ills of society. George Bush Sr. said, "The American way of life is not negotiable." This means conspicuous waste is here to stay, and there's only one way to deal with it. Get an education in engineering, chemistry, agriculture... Re-design our products and systems so conspicuous waste is no longer harmful. Anything else is equivalent to burying your head in the sand.
Dumpster diving isn't as weird as it seems. Firstly, there are rarely literal "dumpsters." The food chosen is usually good-condition prepackaged food that has merely been stored in plastic bags on the curb.
The vegetables are usually just a little bit past prime (if that) and also stored in neat plastic bags. Remember: minutes before they were thrown in the "garbage," these products were on the shelf, on sale. They're no worse for you for being in a plastic bag.
(It is important to neatly re-tie the curbside trashbags as to not disturb the normal pickup of trash)
Once home, the food is sorted.
Under the interior light, one can further inspect the products. Some are discarded right away. Some vegetables are cut to separate bad parts and spare the rest. All vegetables are cleaned. Prepackaged foods remain in their prepackages.
The fridge is then stuffed so full of food that it's hard to close the door. It's all free. If this is done on a regular basis, it becomes almost essential to host dinner parties with other freegans or people not opposed to eating priorly-discarded food.
Once a person gets the hang of it, mostly the psychological aspect of breaking with society, it's not weird or gross at all.
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