August 24, 2007
Blogging Freeganism
Freegans have been around for a while now, most recently The Times caught them dumpster diving in the NYU area just as school let out. A freegan goldmine! Now a blogger for Newsweek is getting knee deep in rubbish for a month in order to fully understand these "waste reclaimers".
Raina Kelley is keeping a blog of her fairweather freeganism, and on her first day (Wednesday) she pondered, "Why would a eBay-loving, omnivorous, cigarette-smoking shopaholic do something like that?" She then quickly explains, "Firstly: I'm trying to examine the phenomena of the Freegans from the inside out in order to explain it to Newsweek readers and I have no problems playing the martyr for dramatic effect."
Kelley exposes her non-green side in this introductory post as well, stating, "These environmentalists are not going away. They are going to nag us, scare us and tell us we're not cool until we change our gas-guzzling ways." By day two, however, she seems to be learning, "if we don't give a damn about Earth, it'll kill us, all of us, every single mammal, just like it did the dinosaurs." Baby steps.
Meanwhile, she's not making any friends in Park Slope. On the Brooklynian message board one resident states:
I take a bit of exception to this sentence:Will the Park Slopers let this freegan rummage through their trash? Will Kelley make it through a month of eating cherry pit sandwiches? Is she really sticking to the rules of freeganism? Only time will tell..."But, I don't want Al Gore, Leonardo DiCaprio or any of the snotty people in my very green and very self-righteous neighborhood (if you Google “Park Slope, Brooklyn” and “judgmental,” you'll get more than 40,000 hits) to tell me that's it's going to be easy."
Sure, this board is evidence that folks in our neighborhood are firm in their convictions, but overall, we all get along okay. Is it fair to characterize us as snotty? Granted, there are a few among us that qualify for that name, but overall I think it's fairly harmonious here and the differences are respected. So is our reputation well earned, fellow Brooklynites?
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The Guardian UK already did this article!!!!
http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/food/story/0,,2149304,00.html
"What our freegan brought home
Chocolate cake
5 bags potatoes
1 box oven fries
1 rice salad
3 ready meals
1 pasta salad
1 pack sweet peppers
1 box sushi
2 bundles asparagus
2 sandwiches
I pack chicken goujons
1 tuna salad
1 edamame bean salad
1 haddock mornay
1 double pack quiches
2 butterflied legs of lamb
1 pack fresh spaghetti
1 pot coleslaw
1 head celery
1 pack organic courgettes
1 bottle salad dressing
2 packs hot cross buns
2 sliced brown loaves
1 pack lime and coriander prawns
1 packet minced Aberdeen Angus beef
3 packs bagels
2 mozzarella and tomato breads
6 punnets cherries
2 punnets strawberries
6 punnets cherry tomatoes
1 whole roast chicken
Total Price £340"
it would be cooler if she hunted rats and ate them alive.
Can someone just copy all of the freegan comments from last month and be done with it?
I hate that "if you Google blah you get blah number of hits" claim. I just Googled "most journalists are stupid" and got more that 2 million results!
uh, "more than"
Fuck Park Slope.
reading this post makes me feel like bill murray in groundhog's day.
except there is no comic relief from chris elliot.
i hope they get pieced with tainted aids needles while picking through the dumpster
no link to the blog itself?
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/freegangirl/
Free Diarrhea as well
She's an awful writer. Doesn't anyone edit her blog? "a ebay buying..." "Firstly,..." 'Nuff said.
She also doesn't seem to understand what a freegan is. She's still buying food, just vegan food instead of meat/eggs/dairy. Being a vegan who tries to eat locally doesn't make you a freegan. That's why they're different words. A freegan who doesn't dumpster dive is an oxymoron. Unless she means she's just freeloading off of friends and coworkers... But that wouldn't really be in the spirit of the whole freegan thing.
So we've established that she's a bad writer and she's also stupid. Why would anyone read her blog?
I agree with 11, the whole "experiment" doesn't make any sense (and that the blog needs copy-editing). She says that since Dumpster diving is illegal in NYC, that she won't actually reclaim food from the trash--so right off the bat, she's not being "freegan." So she's going to buy foods locally from greenmarkets and co-ops for a month? Gasp! What a kooky experiment!
Have these "practitioners" ever heard of hepatitis B...?
I'd like to assist the girl in the photo with her recycling efforts by drinking her bathwater.
Don't knock rats - they're a delicacy in Chinese peasant culture. Well, actually they ingest only the embryos dipped in soy sauce.
Come to think of it, perhaps slumming isn't exactly a bad idea, especially if it were to take place in the tonier precincts like Sutton Place and Gramercy. I'd eat an eclair right out of the garbage pail, especially if it's still on the doily...
Eating food out of dumpsters and garbage bags is just plain stupid. Its an obvious health risk. And what the hell does if have to do with environmental responsibility? Imagine if City Harvest collected food from dumpsters.
Rescuing recyclable objects (wood, metal, clothes, furniture, etc.) does make sense to me. But eating out of dumpsters and as an eco-statement is a little disgusting. They should call themselves dumb-sters.
Freeganism is a phase many kids go through. We hate our parents, too.