Freegans?! WTF! They are like Human Raccoons

[The Watcher]

Trash Talkers

Linky

Do you hate having to work for a living?

After another hard day at the office, many of us will answer ‘yes’ to that question, but won’t do much about it.

And then there are the people who call themselves the “Freegans”.

They’re a small but growing number of disgruntled individuals who not only reject the concept of the 9-to-5 work world, but embrace a lifestyle that keeps most of us toiling for another day.

Simply put, Freegans – a combination of ‘free’ and ‘vegans’ - refuse to patronize any business or buy anything at all.

So how do they survive? In a way most of us can barely imagine.

Their meals come from picking through garbage cans and finding whatever’s left over. For most of us, that’s beyond disgusting. But for the people who reject the need to acquire more, it’s their daily bread.

"Everything I eat comes from dumpsters," Ash Falkingham freely admits. "For me it's a logical lifestyle choice. It's such a natural thing to use up that waste."

The trend, which started in the U.S. and has since spread to Britain and Canada, sees believers prowling the backstreets behind supermarkets, taking whatever’s been discarded.

Falkingham and his friend Ross Parry live in a clunker of a van, which has been spruced up with a sink, a toilet, carpeting and a heater taken from a junk yard. They have an MP3 player – but only because someone else threw it out. And they take whatever else they can find that others no longer want.

But they insist they’re not bums because they don’t panhandle. They say they're just people who are trying to alert the world to the vast amount of waste businesses produce every day.

Proponent Adam Weissman describes Freeganism as "a total boycott of an economic system where the profit motive has eclipsed ethical considerations."

"Instead of avoiding the purchase of products from one bad company only to support another, we avoid buying anything to the greatest degree we are able," he explains on a group website.

“All the products we buy will have detrimental impacts most of which we may never even consider. Thus, instead of avoiding the purchase of products from one bad company only to support another, we avoid buying anything to the greatest degree we are able.”

Shopaholics will be stunned to hear that Parry’s been living this way for more than 20 years.

"When you first start off, you think, 'How am I going to live without a wage?'," he asks. "But our priority is to work for love to make the world a better place, and we want to have more time to do that. The less time we spend chasing a salary, the more time we have to do what we really believe in.”

Freegans claim their numbers are growing steadily, although there’s no way to measure how many there are around the world.

Experts admit a large majority of what’s discarded into the trash on a daily basis is unused food scraps and that a lot of it is, in fact, perfectly edible if salvaged in time.

Don’t they worry about getting sick?

"I think I have only once been ill from eating food from bins,” answers Falkingham. “I got diarrhea. But I like to push the limits with what I eat."

So the next time you feel like chucking that annoying job or cursing the latest price rise at your local store, remember that there are people who have been there and done that lurking around your city.

But they’re members of an international club the majority of us likely would never choose to join.



June 1, 2006

[Flashy_McFlash]

Hee! I was just reading about them in some hippie magazine in New York.

I love people's justifications for not wanting to get a goddamn job.

[The Watcher]

I Think they should wear these costumes on a daily basis.

[Muad'ib]

"you didn't eat all of your plankton, fatcats!"

[Michlerish]

think of all the factories and housing complexes that would go to WASTE if everyone turned Freegan.

Think of all the waste these freegans are adding to our cities just by going to the bathroom.

They should be thanking the city workers for allowing them to have access to clean water and a park bench to sleep on, and thanking the people that work to create the waste they live off of.

[Muad'ib]

way to miss the point mishlerish.

[Caz]

ooooh yeah!!!! I heard about these guys!!!!

They're called 'homeless'

[ev]

choice my ass.. they're just losers that can't hold down a job

[Kiera]

Originally Posted by caz

ooooh yeah!!!! I heard about these guys!!!!

They're called 'homeless'

bang on!

[TheRunningBoard]

This is fucking hilarious. I went the website, and they have pictures of the garbage they eat.

That also got me thinking, how do they explain putting up a website? Someone is hosting that site, and it isn't being hosted from a garbage bin.

[Maui]

At least they arent' morally bankrupt like the rest of society.

p.s. Gena from Minnesota is hot!

[Michlerish]

Originally Posted by Muad'ib

way to miss the point mishlerish.

I got the point alright. So they're eating shit to prove a point that we waste too much?

And if we listened to them and somehow drastically reduced the amount of waste we produce.... they would get a job and live normally?!

[Flashy_McFlash]

How are they any less morally bankrupt? They'd still wear your sweatshop-made clothes and half-eaten McDonalds crap if you threw it away.

lol @ "I like to push the limits with what I eat". Here, try this lightbulb, fucknut.

[Maui]

Originally Posted by Michlerish

I got the point alright. So they're eating shit to prove a point that we waste too much?

And if we listened to them and somehow drastically reduced the amount of waste we produce.... they would get a job and live normally?!

I'd say they have a job, they just arent' geting paid for it. It takes skill, and strategical thinking and planning I'd say to survive that way.

Normal? Is that what you aspire to be? Gimme a sec, I'm gonna go back to the snoring I was doing about an hour ago.

[Flashy_McFlash]

Originally Posted by Maui

I'd say they have a job, they just arent' geting paid for it.

What's their job?

[Stan]

There are a few freegens at my work. Except, the fuckers don't pick through garbage - they just eat other people's lunches from the fridges.

[The Watcher]

Surviving with no money in an urban society. It's not easy if you aren't panhandling.

[Caz]

Originally Posted by Flashy_McFlash

What's their job?

eating shit, apparently

[Flashy_McFlash]

I find it really difficult to believe that these rats find the time to do volunteer work in between dumpster dives.

[Stan]

There was a family like that on one of those wife swapping TV shows a few months ago. They didn't dumpster dive, though - they just went from store to store and asked for discards at day's end.

[Maui]

Originally Posted by Flashy_McFlash

What's their job?

Environmentalist? They are recycling the crap that would fill dumps.
Activist? They are spreading a message to help people improve their habits.
Marketing? Your hearing their message aren't you.

[wayne bradbury]

Originally Posted by Stan

There are a few freegens at my work. Except, the fuckers don't pick through garbage - they just eat other people's lunches from the fridges.

Thats when you need to purposely make an awesome lunch spiked with something so you know who was the culprit. Pee in a bottle of apple juice and refridgerate that. Someone drinks it they will think twice next time.

[Kalemic]

I wonder how often they get food poisoning...

I like this part too.

"Rent-Free Housing
Freegans believe that housing is a RIGHT, not a privilege. Just as freegans consider it an atrocity for people to starve while food is thrown away, we are also outraged that people literally freeze to death on the streets while landlords and cities keep buildings boarded up and vacant because they can’t turn a profit on making them available as housing.

Squatters are people who occupy and rehabilitate abandoned, decrepit buildings. Most squatters are freegan. Squatters believe that real human needs are more important than abstract notions of private property, and that those who hold deed to buildings but won’t allow people to live in them, even in places where housing is vitally needed, don’t deserve to own those buildings. In addition to living areas, squatters often convert abandoned buildings into community centers with programs including art activities for children, environmental education, meetings of community organizations, and more.

Cause yeah, thats a brilliant idea. ahah And I'm really sure they go forth and turn them into "community centers".

Well its fine by me for a person to live their life the way they want (and it they actually do live by these principles thats fairly commendable re: the food and volunteering), the pipe dreams they're espousing are pretty rediculous.

[Krzysiu]

I hate them.

[littlejon]

Originally Posted by Stan

There are a few freegens at my work. Except, the fuckers don't pick through garbage - they just eat other people's lunches from the fridges.

hey - that is me.
i didn't know that it was a lifestyle and a political statement, i just thought it was convenient and tasty.