Vegans and freegans
Hoffman says freegans are an exciting new extension of the Dumpster diving population. He began Dumpster diving when he was 7 to supplement his family’s income after his father was injured in World War II. He sees it as related to veganism but less strict.
Maria Jenkins, a fine arts major, and Jeff Tucholski, a geography major, enjoy bread and vegetables at a potluck dinner hosted by the freegans.
“One of the problems of veganism is that it’s so absolute that it’s bound to cause moral quandaries,” Hoffman says. “The most devoted and consistent vegans will be forever offending others, packing their own lunch, much of which comes in plastic and from the very same store that sells meat.”
Freeganism allows an individual to eat anything that is free. In fact, many freegans eat meat and animal products as long as they are free. Attending family reunions gets a lot easier.
“The freegan emphasis on human justice as well as animal justice makes it a lot easier to drag in various issues without being trapped in a vegan moral quandary between plastic tofu wrappers and frozen, store-made hot dogs wrapped in biodegradable white butcher paper from the mom-and-pop store,” Hoffman says. “Freegans have dealt with the practical reality of the cruelty-drenched, highly imperfect world in which we find ourselves and the practical limitations of a vegan lifestyle.”
The ethics of Dumpster diving
Rather than purchase overpriced vegan food and contribute to a system they see as wasteful, freegans strive to live as ethically as they can in terms of ecology and economics.
Josh Sebrasky, a senior English major, arrives with a load of food after rooting through a grocery store Dumpster.
Meyers says the key word is responsibility. “In American society, every citizen is responsible to follow the established laws, but nowhere in our educational system is anyone teaching that we are responsible to follow the laws of the earth,” he says. “As a rule, whatever can decompose is good for the earth; what cannot is not good.”
Because American education is being privatized and tuition is rising, individuals are left with no choice but to buy into a system in which the pursuit of happiness turns into the pursuit of money, Meyers says.
“So now I have to go to school, and I can’t pay for food. So what am I supposed to do?” Meyers asks. “I don’t have a guilty conscience. As I see it, I’m reviving value that would otherwise have been waste. It’s a peaceful movement, but at the same time, Dumpsters are private property, so there is risk involved.”
Sebrasky adds, “It’s illegal, but it’s good for the world.”
Because it is cheaper to waste things than recycle them, freegans view the for-profit motive of a market economy as detrimental to nature.
“Americans comprise 4 percent of the world’s population yet generate 25 percent of the world’s waste,” Sebrasky says. Although it may seem obvious based on those statistics, what seems like an excessive amount of waste from the perspective of the Dumpster diver does not seem to be a lot to a store owner.
“Compared to what the stores actually sell, from the perspective of the store or bakery, they may not consider themselves terribly wasteful at all,” Hoffman says. “Their math is cold, calculated and economic. It is apparently worth their while to, for example, get a good deal on kiwi in bulk even if they end up wasting a certain proportion of it. Despite what divers see as a lot of waste, the stores are making a hell of a profit.”
Slightly bruised fruit and other less than desirable things are quickly moved off the shelves to make room for items that are more attractive and more likely to sell.
“Dumpster diving feels liberating in a way because you know you don’t have to work to survive.”
A store will throw out 50 pounds of brown bananas rather than advertise 50 pounds of bananas suitable for banana bread, Hoffman says.
Store owners want to make sure items on the shelves are perfectly fresh. “This is a high-class joint, not a banana brothel, and space is at a premium,” Hoffman says. “This is how stores seem to think. They’re not going to sell you a month’s worth of fruit for a pittance, not when they can sell you a week’s worth of fruit at a premium.”
Sebrasky and other divers say they are not bothered about using the system of waste to survive.
“Dumpster diving feels liberating in a way because you know you don’t have to work to survive,” he says. “I would like to be an ethical consumer, but as a student, it is economically impossible. If I was an ethical consumer, I would still be as dependent on the system as I am as a Dumpster diver. They are kind of like two sides of the same coin. But I’m no longer limited by the feeling that after I graduate I have to immediately get a job.”
The Burr is produced by students at Kent State University twice per academic year.No part of The Burr may be reprinted without permission.