Here - I’ll lend you guys these two straight jackets I scavenged from another board. They’re one-size, as long as you eat yogurt. 
I suspect that the only thing enviable about that existence is the freedom from guilt for contributing to what they perceive as a serious problem with human society. I would be surprised if serious freegans cared that much about material wealth beyond necessary clothing and a supply of food. That’s not much different than a “bum” going to the free soup van, except for the philosophy.
All I can say is, dumpster diving for survival sounds like a lot more work to me than my job as a software engineer.
I recycle as much or more than the average American. I live a fairly simple life, though do enjoy some luxuries.
That said, the Freegans freak me out. I hope no one is raising kids in that environment. Recycled diapers? Yuck. Recycled community based medical care disdaining modern medicines. That’s fine if a person is under age 40 and healthy or a Christian Science person (no meds unless under danger of immediate death). However, if I were seriously ill or after age 40, I’d like to have modern medicine available and all that goes with it (though I’d prefer to be healthy). No toothpaste? Or recycled toothpaste and soap? Again, yuck. No mention of toilet paper, or modern plumbing and all its compromises, but again, a potential sickening yuck.
One test for any philosophy is what if everyone did it? If everyone adopted Freeganism even for a month, there would be mass starvation, widespread disease, and riots where the strong prey on the weak. No thanks. Like I said, a Freegan sounds like a glorified rat living out of dumpsters. Yuck.
I just don’t see what harm freegans cause, I guess the idea is offensive to some but even if they were taking your waste out of your dumpster, what’s the big deal?
I think “national freeganism month” is the wrong way to look at it. Freegans see themselves as trying to reduce a serious problem, and they wouldn’t have to do it if the problem didn’t exist to begin with.
wouldn’t be able to do it
Same difference. What’s your point?
Like you said they are a fringe movement and most will mature out of it by the time they age and mature a bit or get sick from dumpster food or dumpster toothpaste, and need medical care.
What irks me is that many Freegans believe that they are living in an ethical way and doing their part to save the planet or save the country from consumerism. I don’t believe it, not from what I have read. To me the Freegans have all the ethics of a rat (none at all) and less wisdom than a rat (negative). If others want to admire or be indifferent towards a human rat culture, go ahead. Personally, I think they should be seen as what they are, rats, and not some romantic visionaries of a simpler time or a simpler future.
Like I said, plecostomus in the fish tank. So their ethics are messed up… I guess this is my last word. I’m not pro-freegan, I am just interested in why people get so riled up about something like this. If a freegan eats a discarded bagel from the bakery’s trash can, rather than stealing a sellable bagel from the shop, how is the bakery harmed?
I don’t know why you are so energized on this throwaway topic, you have more posts on this subject than anyone else.
As to my reasons, that kind of discussion belongs in that other place. The short version I have already given, and if it didn’t make sense to you, the long version probably won’t parse in your compiler either.
Rule #1: no one wins an argument on the Internet.
Hmmm, I’m getting an idea for a new form of entertainment on a Sunday afternoon, down at the dumpster, hand guns, a case O beer. 
djm
Apt analogy! But also why it’s not going to change the world. Maybe they’re ok with that.
Yeah, that’s what occured to me. So again…the plan isn’t going to change the world, and maybe they are ok with that. It’s just that the vibe I get from their website is that they seek to transform society.
Thanks Annie! (Um…where did you get that yogurt? And do you mind if I scrape the apple peel off the container first?)
choice
I would think that if you were truly determined to shun mass consumption and live an environmentally sound life, you would find it a contradiction in terms to consume the same products you are shunning, regardless of whether you bought them new or dug them out of a dumpster. “I reject your vile consumer goods! As long as I can enjoy them for free.”
I would think that if you were honestly motivated to improve society, foster self-sufficiency, and promote “green” living, you would work to develop affordable housing, realistic means of lessening dependence on consumer products, and mechanisms whereby people can grow their own food. You’d actively devote your attention and effort to altering the demand by supplanting it with something more ecologically sound.
These folks aren’t doing anything constructive to change society. They’re just squatting in abandoned buildings, contributing to the plague of hitchhikers on our highways, and digging up landscaping in public parks to use as “medicine.”
“Mooching” would be a polite term for the part of it that doesn’t verge on criminal behavior. Really, I think it’s just a bunch of bums. We’ve had that kind of person on the fringes of society forever. This bunch is just trying to justify their existence.
Yes Lamby, I agree.
Ultimately, trying to come up with sustainable–as in sustainable for the number of humans who currently exist–options, would be a laudable objective.
You did a much better job of saying what I tried to say.
whine- I guess sheep are a bit smarter than cows- but then we are harder to herd. 
so maybe it evens out…
I think those people are from Cavan.
J.
Sigh. Please don’t think poorly of us because of the herding thing. If you had fleecy ankles, you’d be easy to herd, too. There is nothing worse than having your legs smell of dog breath.
Laaaammmmby! Waaaalkiessss!!!
djm
So… if you need a chair and you can’t afford to, or just don’t care to spend $50-100 bucks on one, and you know where some are discarded, you wouldn’t go claim one of those? I sure as heck would! Is it stealing to take something that someone else has thrown out? Not really. And if someone has thrown it out, why in the world should anyone care if someone else claims it?
If you see people lined up for room at a shelter, so many of them that quite a few get turned away every day, you wouldn’t help them get into an abandoned building? I think I might.
It is shameful that we have excess shelter at the same time we have rising numbers of homeless folk (for whatever reason). Being homeless doesn’t actually equate to worthlessness. If jobs were handy and housing affordable, and nothing ever went wrong in people’s lives, most wouldn’t be there.
Changing the path of society isn’t just done in boardrooms and senate floors, it happens in back alleys of cities, small towns near farmlands and even along highways too.
Umm… I’d say that’s pretty much what they are doing, just not in the ‘normal’ or conventional or ‘socially acceptable’ way. Society has this annoying tendancy to not accept things it finds inconvenient, or can’t make money off of. That doesn’t mean everything that is ‘odd’, unconventional or that reminds us of some of our problems is wrong.
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Not all of their behavior is good, no… no argument, but conversely, not all of it is bad either, and I think there are some good lessons to be learned from them… like the more socially acceptable but less than universally practiced ‘Reduce - ReUse - Recycle’ focus that makes far more sense that the ‘norm’ of ‘me-my-mine’ that feeds rampant consumerism and wastefullness. There are more ‘walks of life’ than most people have ever considered.
… or are ‘we’ trying to deny it?
Yes, there are zealots in any group, and they can be a problem, but that isn’t sufficient reason to deny the whole, and never has been. There is a long and ‘glorious’ history of relegating the poor, the infirm and the ‘different’ (subject to a wide variety of definitions, depending on who is in power at the time, and which group is hated most at the moment) to the fringes of society, whether that is where they want to be or not. The fact that they can survive, and even thrive on what we throw away is telling, and not just about them.