Photo: Carolyn Cole / LA Times
The Los Angeles Times has a neat article spotlighting "freegans," a growing subculture that promotes opting out of capitalism in any way you can, cutting spending habits, and living off consumer waste by dumpster diving for food.
For lunch in her modest apartment, Madeline Nelson tossed a salad made with shaved carrots and lettuce she dug out of a Whole Foods dumpster. She flavored the dressing with miso powder she found in a trash bag on a curb in Chinatown. She baked bread made with yeast plucked from the garbage of a Middle Eastern grocery store.
Nelson is a former corporate executive who can afford to dine at four-star restaurants. But she prefers turning garbage into gourmet meals without spending a cent. [...]
Nelson, 51, once earned a six-figure income as director of communications at Barnes and Noble. Tired of representing a multimillion dollar company, she quit in 2005 and became a "freegan" -- the word combining "vegan" and "free" -- a growing subculture of people who have reduced their spending habits and live off consumer waste. Though many of its pioneers are vegans, people who neither eat nor use any animal-based products, the concept has caught on with Nelson and other meat-eaters who do not want to depend on businesses that they believe waste resources, harm the environment or allow unfair labor practices.
The following link takes you to an essay titled: "Home of the Brave?" which was published by the
Athenaeum Library of Philosophy:
http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/steinsvold.htm
John Steinsvold
Uhm…Ever hear of overpopulation?
---------
there is no overpopulation of the Earth, look it up.
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.
On another note, if you think this is just about growing more or less food, you are *quite* missing the point.
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.