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44 comments to "Freegans: Anti-Consumerists or Just Tightwads?"
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Fuzz
September 11th, 2007 at
5:00 pm
Good thing she once made a lot of money. . she will need it for medical bills one day.
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Denita TwoDragons
September 11th, 2007 at
5:15 pm
How about instead of taking food out of the mouths of the homeless, she use her money and raise her OWN vegetables, then open a soup kitchen and feed the people who dine a la dumpster because they have no CHOICE?
–TwoDragons
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markus
September 11th, 2007 at
5:31 pm
Right, billions of people in the world are starving cause they need jobs, but i can totally see how you hording your money is a good thing….
You want to save the world? Go buy as much made in ____ crap you can, as often as you can.
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kerozene
September 11th, 2007 at
5:32 pm
Hehe They’re like the human equivelent of vultures and jackals.
mmmm you going to eat that?
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Celeste
September 11th, 2007 at
5:48 pm
It sounds gross on the surface, but I’ve talked to people who do this and they only eat things that are still sealed or given to them by employees before actually being put into the trash. It’s not like they’re taking open food that’s touched all kinds of waste and germs.
It’s not something I would be able to do, but I don’t think it’s as unsanitary as one might initially assume.
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Justin
September 11th, 2007 at
6:11 pm
One thing I want to say is that I find the thinking of these anti-consumerist/anti-capitalists pretty strange. There is this thinking among them that corporations and big businesses are all bad. Buying stuff you don’t need is bad. And that if everyone thought and acted their way the world would be perfectly harmonized. I find this incredibly naive and short sighted. Do some businesses hurt the environment and do bad things? yes. Does our society produce too much waste by buying things we don’t necessarily need? yes. But it’s the demand for these things we don’t “need” that provide the vast majority of jobs in this world so that more people can afford the things they do need to survive.
The funny thing is that they rely on the very thing they rail against.
So yes there is a need to reduce waste to help the environment, but we can’t all go to their extreme without destroying our way of life (and ushering in untold amount of suffering and death)
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Jerse
September 11th, 2007 at
6:12 pm
So they’re fighting capitalism by living off of capitalists garbage.
This is probably the stupidest thing I have ever heard of.
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Capt. Obvious
September 11th, 2007 at
6:14 pm
How is that “living free from capitalism”? If there where no capitalism, there would be nothing in those dumpsters. If you want to be free of corporations you should also be free of the cities they built. Go live in an off the gird commune out in the country like the other hippies.
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ted
September 11th, 2007 at
6:40 pm
How nice to be wealthy enough to afford to make that choice.
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VonSkippy
September 11th, 2007 at
6:53 pm
Hey mommy, what do you do. Well honey, I emulate a parasitic tapeworm. Sweet!
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Ray
September 11th, 2007 at
7:53 pm
Damn dirty hippies.
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Geekazoid
September 11th, 2007 at
8:58 pm
Capt. Obvious and the others nailed it, how is it being anti consumerist when in fact they are living off the consumerists? Isn’t that like a contradiction or something?
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Chris
September 11th, 2007 at
10:02 pm
kudos for all the comments. Stupidest thing.
Well, I just hope she’s in the same retirement plan that I am into, because by rumaging through garbage she’ll die pretty soon from a nasty disease or an old dirty needle.
More capitalist retirement money for me. -
Nonimus
September 11th, 2007 at
10:17 pm
This is freegan awesome. It is a lifestyle choice that has an activist message: we are a throwaway culture, an over-consuming culture, and we are suffering for it. Issues of world hunger, environmental degradation, personal health, labor conditions (such as sweat shops) — all of it is connected, and our individual choices (diet or otherwise) add up. Freeganism is not meant to be a sustainable practice. The folks in New York City, and other places, can do it because the society’s waste allows for it. It is an ethical choice, until (if ever) our culture shifts as a whole. If we lived more simply, we would be providing goods and services on a local level … instead of shipping bottled water from Fiji, or cutting down Amazon rainforests to graze cattle, or whatever. In the United States, we are treated more as consumers than citizens — so, be as it may, our consumption habits (energy, food, entertainment, etc.) can literally shape the world for the better. Someone once described it as, “Economics as if people mattered.”
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biltmore
September 11th, 2007 at
11:00 pm
Damn dirty hippies indeed.
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Lasse
September 11th, 2007 at
11:49 pm
Freaking hippies!
No seriously, as Capt. Obvious and others stated: She is still depending on the capitalist distribution system, just not supporting it. So in that logic, once the system fails because of noone supporting it, she would die of starvation because she didn’t make any long term sustainable food system for herself.
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K
September 11th, 2007 at
11:57 pm
They’re not taking food from the mouths of the homeless because the homeless can’t eat even quarter of the food that’s thrown away every day.
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Nora
September 12th, 2007 at
1:01 am
They call themselves freegans, but like others stated its more like “Parasitic Consumerism”.
I’m a firm believer that there is a very simple, and very easy way to conserve and preserve the planet.
Just don’t have kids. Its amazingly simple.
Think of all the waste one person creates in their lifetime. Just by NOT having that kid you’ve eliminated one lifetime of waste and consumption by 100%.
I always lol at conservationists that have like 2-3 kids. hypocrites. -
George
September 12th, 2007 at
5:14 am
Better someone use the bruised fruits/veg that no one is willing to buy off the shelves than it sadly going to waste in a landfill - such a shame… perhaps more shops should do what you see a lot of in the uk - a rack with the ‘crap’ produce that would normally be thrown out, but marked down in price to nearly nothing… if anything it’s a lot more hygienic.
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torrance
September 12th, 2007 at
5:51 am
From the photograph, it is clear that they are picking through garbage, and not for just the stuff that is still unwrapped.
Having once worked in a kitchen, during college, I cannot imagine that it is sanitary to pick through this stuff. Along with waste food, and stuff we felt had become barely edible, we also threw away dead rats, drain gleanings, vomit soaked rags… the list just goes on.
These freegans, I believe, have a mental illness.
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Jon Henshaw
September 12th, 2007 at
7:26 am
An excellent example of when idealogues go too far. Similar to what some of the other comment posters have said, they could be doing so much more with their time and money. However, this type of lifestyle is completely innefficient and ineffectual for just about everything they stand for. Meaning, their actions make basically no social impact for the things they care about the most. All it does is make my dumpster a little cleaner and their colon a little nastier.
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pol x
September 12th, 2007 at
7:30 am
there’s a degree of being wilfully myopic in most of the posts here.
The amount of food thrown away each day is appalling, so rather than prove a point that this “waste” can feed many, the freegans should go in and buy what is about to be thrown out?
I am about to knock 50% off the cost of a car, do you A Run in and buy one before the reduction or wait patiently for a fat saving?
Capitalism is amoral, the only reflex it has is to feed the share holders, who are like baby birds, blind, voracious and indiscriminant.
Also as for the hygiene aspect, most everything in the world is edible if properly cleaned.
Potato grows in dirt, the dirt is fertilised with shit.
The best tomato I ever tasted grew in a friend of mine’s own shit.
Literally he ate a tomato,took a shit in his outhouse toilet, moved the toilet next week and in the summer the plot was teeming with the best Toms I have evr tasted.
Where the f*ck did you think vegetables come from?
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pol x
September 12th, 2007 at
7:32 am
I love that the girl on the right is wearing a Scotland’s For Me t shirt.
I’m Scottish so it struck me as funny.
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kevin
September 12th, 2007 at
8:10 am
Nora….Without having children…the worlds population would eventually become non-existent…fool
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scot
September 12th, 2007 at
9:29 am
What a bunch of idiots.
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mutterhals
September 12th, 2007 at
9:53 am
I try pretty hard to only purchase the things the I need, rather than things I merely want. I must say that I find this beyond disgusting. Would you feed your kids food you found in the garbage?
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karenw
September 12th, 2007 at
9:58 am
What’s wrong with picking up/using stuff that’s thrown out? I do it all the time. Granted, with food, you have to be REALLY careful (I hear it works better in large cities), but why hate on those who find a good use for that which is wasted?
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ThornQ
September 12th, 2007 at
10:47 am
Nonsense. I could understand this as a protest thing for a while, but not as a lifestyle and not for the stated reasons.
If you want to live free of the capitalist machine you need to provide for yourself and barter/trade/labour exchange with others to provide the rest. That simple. And she evidently has the funds to do it.
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Geekazoid
September 12th, 2007 at
10:54 am
Hey no probs if people want to dumpster dive. More power to them.
But they don’t need to go around haughtily annointing themselves anti capitalists and other nonsensical self aggrandizing terms, to make themselves feel superior to others. It’s like dishwashers calling themselves supply chain management assisters. Know what I’m saying?
They are dumpster divers, no more and no less. No need for fluff.
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Tyfus
September 12th, 2007 at
11:44 am
You know what’s really disgusting? People that are part of a system that throws away enough food to feed the developing world three times over, complaining about people that are at least trying to make a stand against wastefulness out of corporate greed.
Alex, Alex, Alex, you used to be cool man. You’ve changed…
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Some crazy dork
September 12th, 2007 at
11:55 am
These are people who are not making the ‘difference’ they think they are.
Also, capitalism is not amoral. Tossing aside the fact that what’moral’ means can be disputed, capitalism isn’t amoral in itself, but it *is* being practiced amorally.
Sorry, but I like the idea that if I work more (or better / smarter / etc), that i can have more of a ‘reward’ than the person who does not.
After all, if a farmer plants no crops, does he expect food to grow anyhow?
It a law of nature, directly porportional.
Effort = getting stuff. -
Sadtomato
September 12th, 2007 at
12:08 pm
Tyfus, why attack Alex? He just posted the article… he has not said one way or another what he thinks of it all.
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L
September 12th, 2007 at
1:01 pm
Why can’t they grow their own food to achieve their aims?
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cuimhne
September 12th, 2007 at
1:27 pm
Nora: I agree with you, just don’t have kids! As for kevin’s comment I have to say well duh! What’s so great about human beings anyway?
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Paul
September 12th, 2007 at
2:07 pm
anti-consumerist/anti-capitalist should be not buying the newest Ipod or drinking bottled water, repairing things that break, buying used cars, etc. not living off of garbage or pretending to be homeless but living in a home.
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Chris
September 12th, 2007 at
3:34 pm
capitalism is not amoral.
It has “no moral”, it’s just optimisation under constraints. That’s why it’s the best system (best in the sense it’s winning over other ones)
Our ‘job’ is to put constraints (ethics, redistribution of wealth, etc.) and to find a good balance between those contraints and the wealth production, i.e. not to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.
The level of balance-desire changes with our beliefs (Republican vs Democrats…), as long as ideology does not blind the system users (communism, some religions, etc.).I think freegans miss the point. Like said in many posts, the only way to opt out of capitalism is to create a community that will not adopt those rules, not parasiting the system they aborh.
Honestly from Shakers, and cummunalism-like societies in New Emgland and elsewhere, to so called communists regimes or religion based governments, I’ve never seen opting out of capitalism working on the long run.
(Hey, how do you find the land first?)Some people must fell like being drawn towards the dark side of the force (”He will join us or die, my master.”), but it’s just a question of balance, not becoming extremists.
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Alex
September 12th, 2007 at
4:13 pm
Tyfus, sadly I was never “cool.” Nerdy yes, cool no.
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VonSkippy
September 12th, 2007 at
6:31 pm
Alex, maybe you’re next gen cool (nool? cerdy?).
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Nora
September 12th, 2007 at
6:51 pm
kevin Says:
September 12th, 2007 at 8:10 am
Nora….Without having children…the worlds population would eventually become non-existent…foolOMG we’re going to go extinct!
Uhm…Ever hear of overpopulation? By choosing to not have kids you’re reducing a problem. I seriously doubt everyone on the planet would follow suit.
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belle&sebastian
September 13th, 2007 at
4:04 am
She’s wearing a belle & sebastian shirt!
good bit! -
pol x
September 13th, 2007 at
7:53 am
Fire fox just crashed and took my lengthy explanation with it.
Capitalism is Amoral, you people seem to not be able to read a friggin dictionary.
moral
of, pertaining to, or concerned with the principles or rules of right conduct or the distinction between right and wrong; ethical: moral attitudes.
immoral
violating moral principles; not conforming to the patterns of conduct usually accepted or established as consistent with principles of personal and social ethics
amoral
having no moral standards, restraints, or principles; unaware of or indifferent to questions of right or wrong: a completely amoral person
Capitalism is AMORAL, and to cap it all it is applied and policed by the immoral.
Also how does growing even more food in a culture where we bin enough to feed everyone to popping amke anything better or high light the waste?
Doens’t this just mean MORE STUFF BEING GROWN WHEN WE ALREADY HAVE MORE THAN WE NEEED.
Good god you US Americans are a greedy avariscious lot.
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just a guy
September 13th, 2007 at
9:31 am
Don’t troll, ‘pol x’. Lumping people together by nationailty is ignorant. The US is a huge country, and you will find a huge varieties of ‘lots’ within. Will you find greey people? Yes. But you will also find extremely charitable people, and everything in between.
On another note, if you think this is just about growing more or less food, you are *quite* missing the point.
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DCer
September 13th, 2007 at
12:05 pm
Just don’t have kids. Its amazingly simple.
Think of all the waste one person creates in their lifetime. Just by NOT having that kid you’ve eliminated one lifetime of waste and consumption by 100%.
I always lol at conservationists that have like 2-3 kids. hypocrites.
——–What a bass-akwards view. Children are producers, not consumers. Children today will popularize non-fossil fuel vehicles 40 years from now. They will develop ways to clean up plastics and the pollution we created. By not raising a child to do that YOU’RE the one creating more garbage.
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DCer
September 13th, 2007 at
12:07 pm
OMG we’re going to go extinct!
Uhm…Ever hear of overpopulation?
———there is no overpopulation of the Earth, look it up.
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