16x9 - Freeganism: Living off trash

They live for free. They eat for free. Or as close to free as they can manage. They're more than frugal; they're freegans. With recession woes inspiring more people to look for meaning outside the mall, freeganism is gaining ground. But is it possible to live off other people's trash? Mike Drolet gets an inside look at living the freegan life.

[lenayacraby]

I grew up homeless from age 3 or so with my mom until around 11, and with the amount of bureaucracy surrounding food banks and other government agencies, the food in the dumpster is often fresher, and more healthy. I remember on one occasion, we went to the food bank and got two cans of tomato sauce, some peanut butter and a couple cans of "fruit cocktail", the next night my mom went dumpster diving and came back with practically fresh bananas and apples, packaged salad mix, day old bread, carrots and "expired" cliff bars. Let me tell you which of those two sources kept a small child from starving!

[ShanayavanderPot]

I work at Mac Donald, and they always trow away 10 trash bags full of fries, burgers, and missed placed orders of ice cream. And it absolutely shocks me till this day.. also they say they recycle.. lol they don't.

[monsteratesso]

Freeganism ain't my cup of tea, but I'm not bashing these people, mad respect to them. Think of all the food we waste, and instead of it going in the trash, it's going into someone's empty stomach.

[misshonney.misswicked]

I don't care what anybody says they're not letting food go to waste I think it's awesome if there benefiting from it and staying healthy and not hurting anybody all the power to them I'm all for it that's awesome

[RetroDeath]

I wouldn't dig through trash bags myself, but over here in France they dump chlorine through the bags thrown out by super markets and such to prevent scavengers and I find that despicable because MANY people could legit eat from that.

[cadavher]

instead of throwing all that food out they should be loading it into vans and donating it to the local homeless shelters! Heck I would drive around for free and pick it up and donate it. Some shelters are strict about what they take, but I guarantee you a starving person with a family to feed wouldn't care if this is where the food came from. I understand the people who do this usually do it to save money, but there are so, so many people who could benifit from all that food! The stores who put locks on their dumpsters or purposely smash and ruin food so that people can't take it home sicken me too, they weren't going to get any money for it anyway so why stop people from taking it. It's not like people who are well off are just going to stop paying for groceries and dumpster dive anyway, they're not going to make less money.

[CleoPhoenixRT]

I'm inspired. I more at local farmers markets. baby steps.

[helentrove]

Sadly its not so easy or even possible over here in the UK, at least in the region I live. The dumpsters are locked or sabotaged to stop needy people from 'dumpster diving'. Its a crazy world for sure.
Years ago when I was younger, my brothers & I used to trek over fields & a wood at the back of our housing estate at night to the back of a foodstore that threw away vast amounts of edible good food, still in its packaging. We were struggling to get by on a miniscule budget & our weekly visits to this store's dumpster rewarded us with bag fulls of treats we could never afford to buy, it was fantastic. It made our mum happy too, she was suffering with severe depression as a single parent trying to make ends meet.
We weren't doing any harm, not trespassing (the dumpster was in a public parking lot) or leaving any mess but eventually, the manager or one of the store workers realised what we were doing & put an abrupt stop to it by opening the packaging & throwing it all about the dumpster. I thought that was pretty darn low & mean. Still, it was fantastic while it lasted. Vast amounts of food are wasted, its unforgiveable when so many people are going hungry. Just idiotic.

[aannalese]

The lady who got all her home stuff for free could at least touch up the stuff she gets. That piano is looking bad

[daffodilsea]

Picking flowers right by the path!? that definitely has been peed on🐕

[sarahsheepdog]

The little purple flower is a clover! My sister and I used to eat them all the time when we were kids. You little tube-like petals are super sweet like candy.

[ms.mystique]

I'd be concerned about bringing bugs into my home from the furniture

[Goabnb]

I work as a custodian in a mall. One of my jobs is to take out rubbish. Whenever I found something useful in the rubbish I take out, I keep it and reuse it, and I hate the mindless consumerism I see on the job. I guess I'm part freegan

[rena]

Shops will not put food in separate bins for free because people will return it for refund or if they get food poisoning they sue the supermarket. There are always people looking to make quick and easy buck.

[Tina-qnpq]

This is incredible. I can’t believe we waste so much food when so many go hungry.

[lexilostinwonderland]

I worked at a grocery store and I had to help take the trash out with my manager and he showed me all the food we waste in the grocery store.I question him why not donate it? He told me they weren't allowed to donate any off it due to policy issues. He didn't even agree to all the waste of food their was.

[jessj]

They must have impeccable immune systems! Me, I'd much prefer a minimalist lifestyle over this. Just buy good quality things you need that will last instead of fishing things out the garbage and becoming a hoarder because "it's free!".

[wordbex]

When I was a teenager I worked at a bakery, and every night we would throw out huge garbage bags full of bread and baked goods (i.e. cracked pies that were perfectly fine other than the cracked crust!). It was a real travesty! My coworkers and I would take stuff home but there was just too much. That was almost 20 years ago, and the waste level has probably doubled or tripled since then. Maybe I should take a late night stroll by that bakery's dumpster...

[thickfine]

This is beautiful ✨look how they come together

[MrGaryg]

Some of the furniture found on city streets do have bed bugs so be careful!