Freegans vs. Dumpster Diving
FREEGANS :
1. Freegans are people who employ alternative strategies for living based on limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources. Freegans embrace community, generosity, social concern, freedom, cooperation, and sharing in opposition to a society based on materialism, moral apathy, competition, conformity, and greed. They boycott products from unethical corporations responsible for human rights violations, environmental destruction, and animal abuse. However, many found that no matter what they bought they ended up supporting something bad. The word freegan is compounded from “free” and “vegan”. Vegans are people who avoid products from animal sources or products tested on animals in an effort to avoid harming animals. Freegans take this a step further though.
The food commonly called “urban foraging” or “dumpster diving”. This technique involves rummaging through the garbage of retailers, residences, offices, and other facilities for useful goods. Society’s stereotypes about garbage, the goods recovered by freegans are safe, useable, clean, and in perfect or near-perfect condition, a symptom of a throwaway culture that encourages to constantly replace older goods with newer ones, and where retailers plan high-volume product disposal as part of their economic model.
2. Dumpster diving is legal in the United States except where prohibited by local regulation. According to a 1988 Supreme Court Ruling (California vs. Greenwood), when a person throws something out, that item is now the public domain. Here is some language from that ruling: “It is common knowledge that plastic garbage bags left on or at the side of a public street are readily accessible to animals, children, scavengers, snoops, and other members of the public.”
3. Dumpster Diving is not sanitary and Freeganism is safe and healthy for the consumer.
4. Pros- less wasteful, cheap, better for the environment in the long run.
5. Cons-
1. Freegans are people who employ alternative strategies for living based on limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources. Freegans embrace community, generosity, social concern, freedom, cooperation, and sharing in opposition to a society based on materialism, moral apathy, competition, conformity, and greed. They boycott products from unethical corporations responsible for human rights violations, environmental destruction, and animal abuse. However, many found that no matter what they bought they ended up supporting something bad. The word freegan is compounded from “free” and “vegan”. Vegans are people who avoid products from animal sources or products tested on animals in an effort to avoid harming animals. Freegans take this a step further though.
The food commonly called “urban foraging” or “dumpster diving”. This technique involves rummaging through the garbage of retailers, residences, offices, and other facilities for useful goods. Society’s stereotypes about garbage, the goods recovered by freegans are safe, useable, clean, and in perfect or near-perfect condition, a symptom of a throwaway culture that encourages to constantly replace older goods with newer ones, and where retailers plan high-volume product disposal as part of their economic model.
2. Dumpster diving is legal in the United States except where prohibited by local regulation. According to a 1988 Supreme Court Ruling (California vs. Greenwood), when a person throws something out, that item is now the public domain. Here is some language from that ruling: “It is common knowledge that plastic garbage bags left on or at the side of a public street are readily accessible to animals, children, scavengers, snoops, and other members of the public.”
3. Dumpster Diving is not sanitary and Freeganism is safe and healthy for the consumer.
4. Pros- less wasteful, cheap, better for the environment in the long run.
5. Cons-