| Freegans ond others
Posted: 11/7/2009 4:27:08 PM | ^^^^^^^Agreed. I'm not interested in shiny, new things however I'm not prepared to eat out of bins/dumpsters................ | |
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| Freegans ond others
Posted: 11/7/2009 4:39:59 PM |
^^^^^^^Agreed. I'm not interested in shiny, new things however I'm not prepared to eat out of bins/dumpsters...........
But Woolies throw out the BEST stuff!? You just have to fight the rats for it! lol | |
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| Freegans ond others
Posted: 11/7/2009 5:37:10 PM | Sounds like it might be part of the Voluntary Simplicity "movement" ~~ you can even get Simple Living Coaching if you're of a mind to, lol! Most of my Quaker meetings have had a group that was working on making the concept a living thing. When they actually make it, it's beautiful ~~ physically and spiritually. . . .
Namasté | |
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| Freegans ond others
Posted: 11/7/2009 5:50:30 PM | It makes sense to me... although, I couldn't delve into a dumpster for food or anything like that...
I always say if the economy relied on me... it would have gone under a long time ago... Simply because I don't feel the need to keep buying useless junk... I buy quality over quantity, and it lasts me a long time... Rarely go shopping....
Basically, I don't keep up with the neighbor's....
I seem to live a simplistic, happier life though... | |
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| Freegans ond others
Posted: 11/7/2009 6:56:23 PM | | Yeah, I can respect "living off the land". You know, growing your own food, solar power, using a bike instead of a car, whatever. When you resort to dumpster-diving though, you are just an extremist outlier. A group of your kind would be referred to as a cult. | |
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| Freegans ond others
Posted: 11/7/2009 7:11:41 PM | I'm guessing that electronics stores, office supply stores, etc. don't donate unsellable items because they don't want the expense and liability of an employee loading stuff into a truck and driving it to Goodwill. At most of those stores they don't even pay for enough employees to man the cash registers all the time so you have to go searching the aisles for a clerk just to take your hard-earned money!
Some stores probably don't get enough of a tax write-off to make donations worthwhile. If an employee were to hurt his back loading a desk or TV cabinet onto a truck for Goodwill, the store would have to pay worker's comp for an activity that doesn't even make a profit for the store. Theoretically a store could arrange for a charity to pick up items from their store but again they would have to appoint an employee to be in charge of that.
There are some grocers and restaurants that donate leftover food to shelters, soup kitchens and food banks (I know of some here in Indiana). But obviously it takes up valuable employee time and money to do so.
The cartoon show "The Goode Family" (from the producers of "King Of The Hill"), which is about a politically correct vegetarian family did a hilarious episode about freegans. | |
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| Freegans ond others
Posted: 11/8/2009 10:07:57 AM | I have a friend that raises poultry and potbellied pigs and she has friends that dumpster dive for her and do their collection route and bring her the bounty for her animals. Good GAWD!! Sometimes it is gourmet bread that is still sealed in the bags, not gone stale yet. Produce that looks better than half of what is in my fridge right now. I would sometimes go cherry pick the best of the produce and cook us up a huge pot of super duper fantastic stew with leeks, collard greens, peppers, potatos, broccoli, potatoes, onions, okra, cabbage, carrots, celery, you name it! It would probably cost me fifty bucks to make that at home from the grocery store. Instead I get it for free and share with a friend, who never cooked and was always floored by what I made out of her future farm animal food. There may be a bruise on a bell pepper, but 95% of the pepper is still good. They need to toss it out by law. I don't know where the other friends dug these veggies up from, but if I knew, I'd be there ahead of them!
She would also get gourmet muffins from Sarbucks, brown and serve rolls, all KINDS of good stuff. And a lot of stale crap too, for sure. But anyone can tell the difference with a squeeze and a sniff or just by looking. Just get the good stuff, feed the rest to the animals. | |
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| Freegans ond others
Posted: 11/8/2009 11:35:52 AM | I know many people who get and give stuff for free. I even know one person who goes rubbishing in bins outside supermarkets for food. The food is really good quality.
Freegans don't all refuse to buy anything. There are plenty of freegans who just don't buy everything, and get some of their stuff for free. | |
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| Freegans ond others
Posted: 11/8/2009 11:40:00 AM |
There are plenty of freegans who just don't buy everything, and get some of their stuff for free. The thing is, it is still all about getting 'stuff.' Accumulating 'stuff.' It stills seems like consumerism and materialism to me. Just finding a way not to pay for it. | |
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| Freegans ond others
Posted: 11/8/2009 11:49:51 AM | Supposedly in Japan people THROW AWAY old electronic items because in their ultra-sanitary (OCD?) culture they equate using another person's TV set with eating from a dumpster!
I rent a storage unit and I've salvaged things (from their fairly clean dumpster) that other storage tenants dump. I've salvaged furniture there (which I donate to Goodwill), even fairly recent computers (which I'm keeping since I'm studying PC repair). The storage company has a rule against dumping furniture & large items so I'm doing them a favor (and making up for someone else's violations!).
I used to do a lot of temporary office work (in dozens of local firms), which sometimes included discarding old supplies and equipment. Occasionally I would ask my supervisors if I could take home stuff (storage boxes, binders, Rolodexes, software manuals, etc) INSTEAD OF of putting it in a dumpster.
But I would never eat food from a dumpster. How do you know the food hasn't been exposed to mold, gasoline or HIV-infected needles or something equally toxic? A simple "look, squeeze and sniff" wouldn't tell you about hazards like that!
The freegan movement seems to be more about the environment and philosophy ("don't be possessed by your possessions") than economics (i.e. getting free stuff). | |
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| Freegans ond others
Posted: 11/8/2009 12:13:07 PM |
There are plenty of freegans who just don't buy everything, and get some of their stuff for free. The thing is, it is still all about getting 'stuff.' Accumulating 'stuff.' It stills seems like consumerism and materialism to me. Just finding a way not to pay for it. | |
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| Freegans ond others
Posted: 11/8/2009 12:13:58 PM | | I watch "The Doctors" almost daily, and last week they did a special on Freeganism... I damn near thru up watching that. I mean, kudos to those who can do that, but I like my food to be fresh and clean. I'm a bit of a germaphobe and I do have my kids to think about. That said, we do a lot of own gardening and live on a cattle farm where we routinely slaughter our own meat (beef, pork, poultry, fish and venison in season). We try our best to avoid the over-consumerism mentality as best we can, shopping resale shops and freecycle on a regular basis. But when it comes to food... it's just too risky to my children's health (and my appetite) to think about eating dumpster leftovers. | |
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| Freegans ond others
Posted: 11/8/2009 12:51:18 PM |
Consumerism is about getting people to BUY your stuff, to trade them for money. Materialism is about getting more and more stuff that others don't have Consumerism is simply consuming. Stuff. Freegans seem to be all about consuming Stuff, just like everyone else, except they don't want to pay for it. Materialism is having stuff. Wahziz's post on here described all the 'stuff' her Freegan friends had, Stuff they got for free, but still stuff, material goods. All I can see in this is consume, consume, own, own....no different than anyone else except you are not paying for it. If you want to give things away, given them to charity, to people who truly need them instead of trying to save a buck so you can afford vacations....going by Wahziz's post again. Got too many books? Donate them to a library so EVERYONE can share in them, not just your friends. Anyway, you aren't talking about donating them, are you, but about trading them for some other material item....more stuff. | |
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| Freegans ond others
Posted: 11/8/2009 1:04:34 PM | Ismene2:
>>Donate them to a library so EVERYONE can share in them, not just your friends.
Actually libraries are very fussy about what they put in circulation, and they have their own sources for getting what they want. Most of of the stuff people donate gets sold at library sales or those little used bookshops some libraries now have. | |
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| Freegans ond others
Posted: 11/8/2009 1:11:09 PM | they have their own sources for getting what they want. Baloney. I've donated books to libraries. Yes, they are selective about what they want, but they do take them. Ther are other places you can donate books and other things. Someone said how silly it was for people to go to garage sales and buy things as if everything people buy at garage sales is useless junk. Lots of people buy books at garage sales. Freegans trade their old books for other goods. There is no freaking difference between selling your stuff at a garage sale and trading it to Freegans for other stuff. No difference. So, the library sells the books you donate. So they can buy books they need, books that EVERYONE uses, and the books they sell are used by those who need them. In general, books tend to circulate, one way or another. | |
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| Freegans ond others
Posted: 11/8/2009 1:23:24 PM |
Consumerism is simply consuming. Stuff. Freegans seem to be all about consuming Stuff, just like everyone else, except they don't want to pay for it. Materialism is having stuff. Wahziz's post on here described all the 'stuff' her Freegan friends had, Stuff they got for free, but still stuff, material goods. All I can see in this is consume, consume, own, own....no different than anyone else except you are not paying for it. If you want to give things away, given them to charity, to people who truly need them instead of trying to save a buck so you can afford vacations....going by Wahziz's post again. Got too many books? Donate them to a library so EVERYONE can share in them, not just your friends. Anyway, you aren't talking about donating them, are you, but about trading them for some other material item....more stuff. Freegans don't donate just to their friends. They give to their friends who need something, give things to charity, and post on a freegan website that they've got stuff to give to anyone who needs. Anyway, they cannot always give to charity. Charities don't take electrical goods, or partially damaged but still usable goods, at least, that's what charities in the UK do. That stuff charities usually chuck out in the bins. Shame, because it's a big waste. Charity workers have told freegan friends of mine that they're free to check their bins, as at least that way, it is recycled, and not just making more rubbish for landfills. | |
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| Freegans ond others
Posted: 11/8/2009 4:08:03 PM | Newsflash....It's already got a name. It's called DUMPSTER-DIVING. Giving it a new name won't make it any less disgusting or risky. Do you honestly think the garbage company comes along every day and washes then sanitizes their dumpsters? This is where cats go to get sick.
How many homeless have already been by shortly after taking a dump around the corner, then rummaging through what these folks consider "treasure"? Yeah, it looks fine. So do STD-infected hookers. Doesn't mean there's nothing wrong with them. What happens when you pull out a perfectly fine-looking cake because you didn't know it had beeen exposed to toxic chemicals? By all means, have a feast.
What's next? Dipping "cycled" corn kernels out of the toilet because some of them are obviously still unused? Hey! You can wash them off and boil them into tonight's stew...and just spit out any germs later. | |
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| Freegans ond others
Posted: 11/8/2009 4:22:21 PM | | The more I read about it, the more disgusting and stupid it sounds. I cans see having an acre or two and growing your own food, preserving and so on. Raising chickens, rabbits, a goat, etc., and being self reliant. Making your own clothes, baking your own bread. All of that sounds nice. Bartering and trading with friends for goods and services. But scrounging and scavaging stuff, including rummaging through dumpsters, disgusting. | |
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| Freegans ond others
Posted: 11/8/2009 4:41:13 PM | My mom has a farm, it is great how she can get rid of most of her garbage.
We can't dumpster dive around here, they have signs on them. No trespassing, private property etc. Stores will call the cops if they catch you in back of their store. My son told me about how they have to trash food when they throw it out when it has expired. I guess you might be able to do it in cities because the police are busy with real crimes.
I buy donated books from auctions to benefit different causes such as Legal Services in my area that is for people that can't afford a lawyer. I agree that is a better way of helping out the world and I do mean the earth as well as people than dumpster diving. Helping out someone to get legal services is a good thing. Keeping books that were made from trees from going in the trash so someone else can appreciate it is also a good thing. | |
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| Freegans ond others
Posted: 11/8/2009 5:08:51 PM |
There are some grocers and restaurants that donate leftover food to shelters, soup kitchens and food banks (I know of some here in Indiana). But obviously it takes up valuable employee time and money to do so.
In Arizona, they can't even do that anymore because of Health Department laws and liability issues. No one can guarantee the food's safety, so instead, it gets thrown away.
I see your point about the trouble it takes to oversee donating items rather than throwing them away. It's sad, though. | |
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| Freegans ond others
Posted: 11/8/2009 7:02:52 PM | I find AMAZING bargains at garage sales. Sometimes you find the best deals in wealthy neighborhoods and suburbs, because people there buy new & expensive items on a regular basis and get rid of the "old" items (which sometimes aren't that old!).
Like a couple months ago I went to a garage sale in an affluent area and got a perfectly good big screen TV for $50! The owner got a newer and bigger TV so he was getting rid of the "old" TV. This TV is so big it's sitting in my storage until I can clear a space for it in my living room. The old owner even hauled it to my storage for free! He told me no one else showed interest that day and he would have hauled it to Goodwill if I hadn't bought it! | |
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| Freegans ond others
Posted: 11/8/2009 7:39:29 PM |
There are some grocers and restaurants that donate leftover food to shelters, soup kitchens and food banks (I know of some here in Indiana). But obviously it takes up valuable employee time and money to do so. The local government-sponsored soup kitchen gets a lot of its food from one supermarket chain that donates its food, rather than put it in the trash. It also accepts food from people, so long as it's not out of date, like cans and bags of pasta. But if all the supermarket chains donated their unused food that goes in the trash, then there would be plenty of food to feed all the homeless in the UK. | |
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| Freegans ond others
Posted: 11/9/2009 5:38:38 AM | in my instance we fed the homeless as a way to remind my children right before christmas(a major shopping time) that others have less. While there's no doubt your intentions were good, this is sort of disrespectful, and strangely exploitative. It almost sounds like going to a wildlife park and scattering feed around in order to teach a kid what a deer eats.
Now that you've organized one day of giving, the groundwork is done. I encourage you to spend another day doing the same thing without any motive other than to ease someone else's suffering.
Some stores probably don't get enough of a tax write-off to make donations worthwhile...There are some grocers and restaurants that donate leftover food to shelters, soup kitchens and food banks (I know of some here in Indiana). But obviously it takes up valuable employee time and money to do so.
Tax incentives aside, these sorts of donations serve another "valuable" purpose. Thankfully there are people in this world who recognize that "valuable employee time and money" are not the only priorities. | |
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