Comments on: Freeganism – Extreme Frugality or Extremely Crazy

By: Tessie Humble

Tessie Humble — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 19:37:09 +0000

I live in the UK and I live a fairly freegan lifestyle. Squatting here is not illegal I’d like to make clear. I am studying full-time, I have 2 part time jobs and I volunteer once a week. I am certainly not lazy. I simply don’t want to pay for food in particular that I don’t need to. The wasterfactor especially disgusts me. 2 of my friends went skipping (bin diving) last week and came back with a table food of fine food, including countless bags of cookies and 2 big chocolate cakes, we had a feast! And I have never been ill because of it. It’s sad that some people can’t trust their senses-smell, taste, to tell if food is off and need a date printed on in a supermarket to tell them so.
Eat well, eat free, be merry

By: Cherm

Cherm — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:10:54 +0000

I was recently working behind a shopping center near downtown Knoxville, (off broadway) and was blown away by how many people I saw drive up in a car or ride a bike, and look in the dumpsters for “good” trash. I could only laugh. To top it off it was a rainy day. I would guess 8 different times I saw this in a 4 hour period.
The Family Dollar was a busy dumpster as well as the Save a Lot. My favorite was the girlfriend boyfriend trash duo that dumpster dived for anything metal. They tag teamed every dumpster looking for metal to scrap. He was in the dumpster as I was throwing out old galvinized sewage pipes I just replaced, I had to say “here is some “good” trash.” I provided him a golden egg and had no idea. Wow.

By: RT

RT — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 02:31:33 +0000

There doesn’t seem to be much difference between “freeganism” and being a bum by choice. It is basically saying “hey I don’t wanna work anymore, so I am gonna find someplace to camp out for a while and eat out of the fucking dumpster like an animal.” What the hell? Why would anyone want to do this by choice? Quit being weirdo hippies, get a haircut, go to work, and support yourselves and your families like you should. BTW I am neither a Republican nor Democrat, and I am an atheist so you can’t blame religion or political views. It’s just common fucking sense.

By: Mike Piper

Mike Piper — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:42:14 +0000

Honestly, I think freeganism is great. I had a number of friends who did it in college. They’d come back with produce that was still quite fresh and still in the cling wrap. To the best of my knowledge, none of them ever got sick from it.

By: Ben

Ben — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 21:26:58 +0000

I find your dislike of capitalism to be kinda funny. Your not against the system your bumming off of it

By: wendy

wendy — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:37:57 +0000

The only thing I get when I work too hard is money and STRESS which has cost me thousands in Dr. tests just to find out its due to stress. Ive had lean times yrs ago, and guess what, no phone, no one bugging me, few possessions, less to care for, etc. it goes on and on, some of my simpeler times were the most carefree and fun times, very stressless. I did lots of dumpster diving, found great gourmet foods every day at hollywood mkt. I fed many neighbors, and stray animals, and all my pets good meat almost every day. When you get 1-3 big boxes of fresh meat a day from a store known for fresh meat, storage bacame a problem, so I used an old van in the winter as a giat freezer. My home always smelled good and several chickens might be in the oven, or great fish on ice right from the store, or shishkabobs. The neighbors started to cop an attitude because all my fat dogs (Several plus all the neighborhood strays in the inner city I lived in)where eating so good and these people ate no where as good as the animals I came in contact with. SO……I HAD TO SHARE WITH THE PEOPLE! It was great fun and saved me money on the entertainment side also, because there was the thrill of the catch which was exciting.

By: Kyle

Kyle — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 02:34:18 +0000

I commend anyone willing to go to the levels the freegans go to, I am not going there though. There are parts of the freegan lifestyle everyone can use, like reducing consumption and reusing where appropriate. Great link although I found the short interviews more interesting than the video of people digging through the trash.

By: Perry Santanachote

Perry Santanachote — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:30:49 +0000

I went on a freegan trash tour last week. Check out the video and interviews I posted and see if you still feel the same way:

http://blogs.journalism.cuny.edu/interactive2010/2009/10/17/let-freegan-ring/

By: Kyle

Kyle — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 12:53:55 +0000

I didn’t see my views as condescending, and retirement to me is not eating out of garbage cans so I don’t have to work. If that is what fits your bill as retirement, why wait? The freegans have proven that by living in a building owned by someone else, and eating the food someone else paid for you to could retire early.

In all honesty, if someone wants to eat my garbage feel free. If you work out a deal with a bagel shop to get their day old bagels, awesome. But better yet, why not find a way to help people who are actually starving as opposed to feigning activism by digging through the trash.

By: MLR

MLR — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 09:03:32 +0000

I think your stance on their views towards work is a little condescending. I think they have the right idea: If you cut consumption 90%, you can cut the amount of work you need to do 90%. We all strive for that. Isn’t that what retirement is? Cut back now so we can save and eventually retire and continue to consume at sustainable levels. They just cut back work as they are cutting back expenses. To each his own.

As far as the dumpster diving is concerned, I don’t think that’s too crazy. If I order a full meal at Outback and then send it back because it was overcooked, the restaurant has to throw it away. People I know who lived this lifestyle just befriended restaurant workers and would get mad leftovers. Some stores are actually “freegan” friendly and will put their “trash” food (day old bagels? “not ripe” fruit?) in a separate container on top of the dumpster.

Props to whoever does it!