Extreme recycling: Food, furniture, diapers
Madeline Nelson finds a bag of slightly bruised apples and day-old bread left in a supermarket's Dumpster too tempting to pass up. "A lot of perfectly good food is thrown away," says Nelson, a spokeswoman for Freegan.info, a New York City group that promotes "freeganism," which eschews conventional commerce in favor of a lifestyle that uses minimal resources. Freegans try not to buy things new -- not even food. Jumping into a garbage bin may sound scary, but Nelson, 52, who lives in Brooklyn, says it's no big deal. Humans, she says, are "hardwired to be foragers." For the thousands who search online for free merchandise, pick up roadside castoffs and even dig through Dumpsters, paying for everything they need is yesterday's news. At a time when many Americans are on tighter budgets and worrying about environmental conservation, the practice may get more popular. startclickprintexclude--> "I'm saving money, but I'm also reducing the amount of stuff that needs to be produced and that eventually may end up in a landfill," says May, a founding member of Going Green Family, a Seattle grassroots organization that helps families run environmentally friendly households. New York City resident Christina Salvi, 32, agrees that curbside shopping is the way to go. "My whole apartment is furnished with discards," she says. "I find really great stuff all the time. Here in New York, it's kind of obscene how much goes into the trash." Salvi helped launch FreeMeet, a local recycling event where people share their unwanted items. "Our goal is to have everything find a new home," she says. some cities have criminalized Dumpster diving. Don't salvage things that need to be refrigerated or show traces of mold, and thoroughly wash any food you've taken from a Dumpster before consuming. It's also a good idea to conduct a smell test of any food you may take; if it smells bad, it probably is spoiled and should be avoided. Nelson says freeganism has nothing to do with income. She says many divers, herself included, have at least moderate incomes: "It's really about boycotting the consumerist system." But not everything can be found in a Dumpster. Nelson admits that some things must be acquired the old-fashioned way: at the store. Like cooking oil -- "You can never find enough of that." |
