Boing Boing: Stop buying food -- become a "freegan"
First off, this isn't new. People have been dumpster diving for ages. Ask anyone who was a punk or squatter in the 80's or even earlier. We learned most about it from barefoot types. The difference is that we were actually homeless or extremely poor, and we frequently combined it with a social concience, organizing massive stir-fries for other homeless, distributing the goodies to soup kitchens and other groups.
What I see in this story are a bunch of young proffesionals raiding resources that could be better used by the truly needy. That sucks.
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1 comment:
I think you know the harm.
Limited resources going to the wrong people. These are people who know better. They have probably seen the wrong side of capitalisms big stick at least once in their lives, because dumpster diving isn't the kind of thing you start doing for the hell of it. Or at least it didnt used to be.
But these people have a multitude of advantages they could be using to help some others with little extra effort since they are already knee deep in dumpster juice. The last time I was able (or needed) to actively dive, their was a war of escalation going on with the divers on one side, and the police, city council and business owners on the other. Attempts were made at making it illegal, some owners were chaining their dumpsters shut, and others were mixing chemicals in with the food. And then there was the police. Ending up in jail for being in a dumpster sucks.
For the punks it was just more excitement, but for the truly needy it was just one more burden. That was one of the reasons behind getting organized and creating DIY soupkitchens and food handouts. Whatever.
I guess solidarity and social conscience has no room anywhere anymore. I will just have to get over it.
Thank you for such a thoughtful comment, by the way. It was a nice way to start off this blog...
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