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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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 Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2007 6:19 pm Post subject: Freegans |
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Wow.
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NEW YORK -- 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.
On this afternoon, she thawed a slab of pate that she found three days before its expiration date in a dumpster outside a health food store. She made buttery chicken soup from another health food store's hot buffet leftovers, which she salvaged before they were tossed into the garbage.
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.
"We're doing something that is really socially unacceptable," Nelson said. "Not everyone is going to do it, but we hope it leads people to push their own limits and quit spending."
Nelson used to spend more than $100,000 a year for her food, clothes, books, transportation and a mortgage on a two-bedroom co-op in Greenwich Village. Now, she lives off savings, volunteers instead of works, and forages for groceries.
She garnishes her salad with tangy weeds picked from neighbors' yards. She freezes bagels and soup from the trash to make them last longer. She sold her co-op and bought a one-bedroom apartment in Flatbush, Brooklyn, about an hour from Manhattan by bike. Her annual expenditures now total about $25,000.
Freeganism was born out of environmental justice and anti-globalization movements dating to the 1980s. The concept was inspired in part by groups like "Food Not Bombs," an international organization that feeds the homeless with surplus food that's often donated by businesses.
Freegans are often college-educated people from middle-class families.
Careful not to rip the bags and risk angering store managers by creating a mess, some unknotted the ties and sifted through the garbage with bare hands. |
http://www.latimes.com |
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Pligganease
Joined: 14 Sep 2004
Location: The deep south...
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| Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2007 6:21 pm Post subject: |
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| Freeganism sounds an awful lot like botulism. |
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cbclark4
Joined: 20 Aug 2006
Location: Masan
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| Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2007 6:24 pm Post subject: |
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| Sounds like a disorder. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2007 6:31 pm Post subject: |
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Now, she lives off savings, volunteers instead of works, and forages for groceries. ..Her annual expenditures now total about $25,000.
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She's unemployed, spends her time dumpster diving and STILL spends what we all make in a year.
Back during the Depression, Will Rogers said something about Americans being the only people in the world who drive to the poor house. |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2007 8:26 pm Post subject: |
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yata reminded me of this:
Poverty in America
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# Forty-six percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.
# Seventy-six percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, 30 years ago, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
# Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.
# The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)
# Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 30 percent own two or more cars.
# Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.
# Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.
# Seventy-three percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and a third have an automatic dishwasher. |
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2004/01/poverty_and_inc.html |
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Pligganease
Joined: 14 Sep 2004
Location: The deep south...
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| Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2007 8:51 pm Post subject: |
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| BJWD wrote: |
yata reminded me of this:
Poverty in America
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# Forty-six percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.
# Seventy-six percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, 30 years ago, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
# Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.
# The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)
# Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 30 percent own two or more cars.
# Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.
# Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.
# Seventy-three percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and a third have an automatic dishwasher. |
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2004/01/poverty_and_inc.html |
But what about all of the poverty in America? Surely its as bad as everyone says, isn't it? |
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faster
Joined: 03 Sep 2006
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| Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2007 5:14 am Post subject: |
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I know a lot of semi-freegans. They do well, but at heart, they're parasitic. They rely on conspicuous consumption and excess. Unfortunately poor people in most countries don't have the option to get flats of produce from the trash or clothing by the pound from Goodwill.
That said, more power to them. |
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huffdaddy
Joined: 25 Nov 2005
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| Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2007 5:56 am Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
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| Now, she lives off savings, volunteers instead of works, and forages for groceries. ..Her annual expenditures now total about $25,000. |
She's unemployed, spends her time dumpster diving and STILL spends what we all make in a year. |
I was thinking almost the same thing. Actually more along the lines of "Hasn't she ever heard of Thailand? Or Mexico? Or almost anywhere else in the world?" $25,000/year in South America. That'd be good living.
The second thing I thought of was "'Madeline Nelson' sure doesn't sound like a Muslim name." |
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Masta_Don
Joined: 17 Aug 2006
Location: Hyehwa-dong, Seoul
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| Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2007 7:03 am Post subject: |
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| faster wrote: |
I know a lot of semi-freegans. They do well, but at heart, they're parasitic. They rely on conspicuous consumption and excess. Unfortunately poor people in most countries don't have the option to get flats of produce from the trash or clothing by the pound from Goodwill.
That said, more power to them. |
It's just trimming the fat.
I'm sorry but I can totally sympathize with these people (well, not the vegen part). I used to dumpster dive as well and eat others' dumpstered food. Then I started working for a hauling company and that's when you realize how much people really do waste. First off, we were an expensive service (all our employees were white) but what people threw out was ridiculous. Couches, wine (hundreds of bottles), completely working machines like record players and embroidery machines, and even money (scored $80 in change from one job). And we were ordered to dump it without thinking about it. I ran the truck so I would allow the 15 minutes it would take to go thru everything but most of the salvageable stuff still got dumped. When I finally get back to the States I'm thinking of returning to that company so I can furish my apartment. If others aren't going to use it, someone should. |
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