Posted on 08/14/2007 12:14:11 PM PDT by Obadiah
To the average person, eating out of a dumpster would be a last resort. But, there is a growing movement of people who choose to eat every meal from discarded food.
Not only that, but everything they have from clothes, to electronics, to the carpet in their homes comes from your waste.
Freegans are people who have chosen not to take part in our capitalistic society by trying to find ways to limit their consumption.
Their goal is to live almost entirely off of America's trash. The word itself is a combination of free, and vegan. And, many of the them live right here in Madison. Including one who recently decided to live freegan.
"It is connected to human, animal, and earth liberation if you want to say that," said Jeff Green. "It's about being as responsible and you can with others who are trying to share the planet with us."
For the past six months, Green has been focused on becoming a freegan.
"No body goes freegan over night," he stated. "It's definitely a long term process and it takes some effort and some real dedication."
Freeganism is a lifestyle where people try to reduce their waste and limit their consumption. They feel that large corporations are unethical and irresponsible, and devote their lives to avoiding them.
The main part of the freegan lifestyle is education and understanding how to re-use products. Green and his girlfriend have a plant that fell off the back of a plant truck. Instead of letting it die on the side of the street, they picked it up and now it is a decoration in their home.
He also has old Tupperware from Noodle and Company. It was designed to be thrown away after use. He keeps shopping bags, dinner plates and silverware wherever he can find them.
"Little spice bottle are really handy to keep around," he said holding a pepper shaker. "After you use them you can fill them up for bulk at co-ops and natural food stores."
Beginning freegans have to start simple. But, Jeff is looking forward to the next step.
"We do not dumpster dive just yet. I am going to make that a personal goal of mine when I get back to college," he stated with a smile.
The late stage freegans even learn how to convert their cars to burn cooking grease, which they get free from restaurants.
While Jeff is a while away from that, he is working toward never having to use toilet paper by switching to re-usable cloth.
There are simple freegan tips that you can use to limit your consumption. If you get a letter in the mail that is one sided, save it to use the other side to write on. When you go to a restaurant take Tupperware for your leftovers instead of using the disposable containers they give you. When you travel make sure you have a detailed map so you don't waste gas. And, If you move use left over newspapers as packing paper.
That point just goes to certify how completely delusional these people are. They cannot grasp their own folly when they denounce large corporations as being evil and then fail to comprehend that these very same evil corporations produced the food, clothing, and other finished resources that they went diving into the dumpster to retrieve. Pffft...
Ugh.
There. Fixed.
This used to be called mental illness...
Ugh...hippies...[time to head to the mall]
Not necessarily.
Some of the tips that they offer (using newspapers for packing, saving the plant that fell off the truck) are good, but powering cars with grease and cooking oil is a bit much. So is their universal condemnation of "corporations."
Let's face it: anyone who goes without food, shelter, clothing, or any of the other basic necessities...here in America...has serious problems. How have we gotten to this stage? Thanks to the "corporations."
Old stuff (pun intended)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1528753/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1528088/posts
I’m always happy to read of people minimizing their taxable transactions. I try to do it myself.
Hope he can find some freegan antibiotics.
Eating from a dumpster is foul but, as a society we throw away a hell of a lot of perfectly good food. Our eyes are often bigger than out stomachs. We don’t realize how good we’ve got it
I would not want to do that laundry.....
His parents must be sooooo proud.
L
P.S. Note to self: If Lurker Jr ever starts spouting this crap when he's off at College immediately cut off all his funding.
All this guy needs is a hair shirt. In the past, those practicing self-denial in this way would enter the religious orders. In our age, religion is passe, but the urge is still there - so their efforts are focused on the fake religions of the environment and socialism.
In Boston (and presumably many other large cities) there is a street market dedicated to old produce (typically surplus or day or two old from grocery stores) which is sold real cheap. At the end of the day the leftovers are thrown on the ground and bulldozed away though much of it is still good.
Some people work really hard at being lazy.
If they really cared about the Planet, they’d all hang themselves with 100% hemp rope.
Buncha hypocrites!
I never have left overs at my house...
85 and 75 pound dogs take care of it.
I also never throw away a plastic grocery sack empty.
All the output of those hounds has to go somewhere.
“Their goal is to live almost entirely off of America’s trash. The word itself is a combination of free, and vegan. And, many of the them live right here in Madison. Including one who recently decided to live freegan.”
Madison. Who would have guessed?
Obviously he is not married.
I read my paper for free on the Internet. Am I a Freegan?
Some of this is simple frugality and admirable in its own way.
Regarding burning grease (presumably in a diesel) - I assume, then, that this “progressive” is reimbursing the state and federal governments for the fuel taxes he is not paying by using cooking oil (not approved by the EPA as a fuel, BTW) instead of diesel. That’s where the money comes from for the roads he uses, as well as typically funding for the public transportation projects he undoubtedly supports, whether there is demand for them or not.
I’d wager this lad would be one of the first to call for tax increases and government regulation on the rest of us, yet he is bypassing both with his vehicle habits. Would that be hypocrisy, irony, or just plain stupidity? I can’t decide.
But I suppose its OK because he “cares”.
I’d like to comment on his sanitary choices, but I’ll leave that to others.
LAPS'em into the Kalahari.
Now even bums have image consultants and PR firms.
These people have been around for a long time. We call them "bums". Didn't know it was a movement, though; thought it was mainly the byproduct of end-stage addiction and mental illness.
Or he is married to another Freegan whackaloon.
I’m so old I can remember when somebody who ate out of garbage cans was just a bum, not a political activist.
************
True. It still is mental illness, regardless of what some call it.
Needless to say, you could not get a U-haul, moving companies were booked, and a pickup would only haul so much.
I knew people who practically furnished their homes by getting out and picking up fairly new furniture, appliances, and even lawnmowers that had been abandoned.
Why waste it and send it to the landfill?
It wasn't anti-corporate, just cheap.
Using a rag instead of TP is a bit much, imo. Ick.
Where do Freegans get a car?
We used to have some other terms for this: Mental patient, hobo, derelict, Joe the Ragbag, etc.. Of course, you can’t call someone a bum anymore...now it’s a “underhoused, non-employment seeking fermented beverage consumer”.
Since chlorine is bad, from the feegans’ standpoint, he also won’t be using bleach to disinfect the cloth after each use. On a pure vegetable diet, he’s likely to pass a lot of mushers. Ick!!!
Their goal is to live almost entirely off of America's trash. The word itself is a combination of free, and vegan. And, many of the them live right here in Madison. Including one who recently decided to live freegan...
If this guy is still rooting around dumpsters in Madison, Wisconsin, in December-January, I will be duly impressed with his commitment to his cause. However, I predict that the August "freegan" will move indoors by winter.
Saving shopping bags and rubber bands, dumpster diving, I had a batty old aunt like that.
I have a couple of just about the same size. Best way in the world to get rid of bacon drippings, chicken fat, etc.
The YDs felt guilty about not being poor I mean. They didn’t eat out of garbage cans...
My Wife has this *thing* about those squares of grass that fall off trucks going to waste but, it’s not as bad as eating someone’s leftover frenchfries from a trashcan.
Frugal is one thing, this nonsense is just that, nonsense.
“All this guy needs is a hair shirt.”
I have to wonder — has all this corner-cutting let him save up enough money to buy a shiny new, smug-producing Pious?
I belong to a local freecycle group. We exchange perfectly good items via internet.
Not tp though.
If I had a diesel car I’d try the vegetable oil in its tank.
And if there is anything the dogs won’t eat, the night animals will take care of it if you put it out under the trees. I never have any garbage - just cans and papers and stuff like that.
Actually, using restaurant grease for fuel is a good waste disposal strategy; getting rid of grease is costly.
...is a mental disorder...
Why not just grow a damn garden?
I save rubber bands, mainly to re-close bags of frozen food to return to the freezer. I save plastic bags to assist in cleaning up the cat box and behaving in a responsible manner while walking the dog. I ain’t nobody’s batty old aunt.
Some of the greatest outfits I've bought over the years have come from Thrift Shops. I love shopping in them.
I suspect you’d need to find a way to clean it before using so your injectors wouldn’t be clogged with solid cooking waste.
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