freegans

wtf.....
Freegan.info

Perhaps the most notorious freegan strategy is what is commonly called "urban foraging" or "dumpster diving". This technique involves rummaging through the garbage of retailers, residences, offices, and other facilities for useful goods.

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bum or hippie??

These people are doing what they think is right what is done in other countries just to feed themselves.

Of course some on this board will urban forage for bottles

I know people who do this and they all hate the term "freegan". my personal feeling is that if someone wants to rescue something that would otherwise end up in a landfill, as long as they dont make a mess then they're doing the world a service. say you rescue a usable chair from the trash not only is that one less thing in a landfill but its one less chair that needs valuable resources to be manufactured, assuming you would have otherwise purchased a chair.

k1v1116 said:

I know people who do this and they all hate the term "freegan". my personal feeling is that if someone wants to rescue something that would otherwise end up in a landfill, as long as they dont make a mess then they're doing the world a service. say you rescue a usable chair from the trash not only is that one less thing in a landfill but its one less chair that needs valuable resources to be manufactured, assuming you would have otherwise purchased a chair.

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Good to know about that term! While I agree with the rescue of salvageable items(I subsc to Freecycle), I would have to draw the line at food!

I am all about reusing an item, especially if it requires mod'ing. :rockin:

I read an article about this happening in the Seattle area recently. Some businesses (bakeries for example) were actually setting aside a seperate dumpster for discarded food products. While I fully believe that "one man's junk is another man's treasure" (let the gay comments fly), digging food out of the dumpster only makes sense if you literally cannot afford food or get it any other way. In the Seattle case, some of the people doing the digging actually had homes, cars, etc... but were pulling bread/salad, etc... out of the dumpster.

I am all about rescuing otherwise good items from just being thrown away. Food however would not be something I would dumpster dive for. it has been considered by me a few times for getting empty beer bottles.

Of course some on this board will urban forage for bottles......

thats recycling.......ale gore says so

k1v1116 said:

I know people who do this and they all hate the term "freegan". my personal feeling is that if someone wants to rescue something that would otherwise end up in a landfill, as long as they dont make a mess then they're doing the world a service. say you rescue a usable chair from the trash not only is that one less thing in a landfill but its one less chair that needs valuable resources to be manufactured, assuming you would have otherwise purchased a chair.

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coming from a food industry back ground. their are a few saftey issues
stuff growing in a dumpster
people getting hurt
people getting poisioned by chemicals that could be on the food.

I know at whole foods they had a bunch of people doing this. My roommate set his hose on these people. WHole foods dumpster is trash. they have a composting dumpster, paper, & trash dumpster. They also give alot of the food away to homeless shelfters. I just think that this is gross.

I'm all for keeping useful stuff out of the landfill. That just makes sense. I also like the idea that some are separating food waste and putting into a cleaner location for people to scrounge out of. Keeps people from getting nasty diseases (well, it helps I'm sure) Plus I've seen some produce at the store that looks like it wasn't fit for eating so what's the diff?

I'd just be careful about eating something from the trash that could have been contaminated by something very seriously unhealthy.

Here in Providence we have this phenomena of people who go around on trash night and pick through anything people have put out (in Providence you can put large items out for trash pick up, like furniture and such).

My family has taken to calling these people the Raccoon People.

hey i urban forage for bottles. i dont really dig in the dumpster and i wont climb into it but if its within reach of the grabber its fair game. need more red stripe SNPA corona and modelo especial bottles. figure 50 of each would be great