10.07.2008 :
we just returned from the roskilde festival, which should explain our recent lack of posts.
and whilst there wasn't much to do in the way of dumpster diving on the festival site, there were plenty of
opportunities for preying on other people's waste, which was in great abundance (waste in abundance,
something seems wrong about that sentence). as a vegetarian i found it quite difficult, what with the
vast majority of food being meat, but i managed.
really about to throw away that
broccoli and feta pancake, a couple of female workers gave us meal vouchers. that was pure festival magic.
and then when the festival is over, everyone just leaves all their stuff behind. it almost feels like
stealing.
1kg sugary breakfast cereal
12 bread rolls
18 buns
9 ciabattas
4 loaves
2kg carrots
250g cherry tomatoes
3 onions
the bad news is that our local, and previously all time favourite dumpster, has disappeared.
it looks like they've started storing them inside . this is extremely annoying because we
know it's not our fault, we've had no trouble there and never left any traces of our presence.
first the food stopped appearing, and now the bins. and it all coincided with a nearby street
that until recently was occupied with much fun and festivities. nevermind. there's plenty of
other dumpsters.
20.06.2008 :
i'm still in a critical mood, so i'll pick on freegan
magazine . and i'm totally allowed to, because they're directly taking
a
whole bunch of my writing (hello there) without asking or telling me. i believe in the creative commons and hate copyright,
so i don't actually mind them doing it, yet . because it's not like they can claim
non-commercial use with all those adverts pasted across their pages.
The Freegan dumpster diving frenzy that is occurring across the United States and other countries is
attributed to the higher cost of fuel and food where consumers are looking to save money and the environment.
which is bullshit. wasn't the point of freeganism (stop me if i'm wrong here) to remove yourself from
the evils of a "complex, industrial, mass-production economy driven by profit, abuses of humans, animals, and the earth abound
at all levels of production"? not to save money.
actually important), food production has been industrialised to the point of disaster.
and, as said above, that is what freeganism is against. there's a reason why 'ethical' food
(organic, locally grown and fairly traded) is expensive. it's because that's how much it costs .
maybe the problem is that people aren't willing to pay the actual (and fair) cost of food anymore.
things at all.
18.06.2008 :
someone baited me with this horrible
piece of writing , which is for the best part nothing but a nasty and simplistic reaction to the mainstream
media coverage of dumspter diving (shouldn't you know better?).
i was going to ignore it, which is the best way to deal with people who pride themselves on being opinionated
and politically incorrect (annoying), but there was something about the slew of unnecessary insults and badly thought out arguements
i just couldn't let go. and it's important for two reasons, specifically it shows how easily dumpster diving is misunderstood
(she has completely missed the point), and more generally it shows how wrong things go when people forge their opinions
based solely on what the media says.
But you must wonder if the compactors, freecyclers, freegans, frugalists, garbage pickers,
and dumpster divers really just hate their own lives, and hate others for being happy,
enjoying an increasing standard of living, or building a life of luxury.
For certain, they hate the advancements that capitalism brings us,
and they hate that consumers have so many choices for making their lives better,
and oftentimes at lower costs and using less time.
there are a number of assumptions being made that need pointing out.
the first is that all dumpster divers have a choice regarding their situation, which is
clearly not true. the majority of homeless people are not homeless by choice . and when a student is heavily in debt,
can you blame them for living off garbage that no one else wants? (or should only the upper class be allowed education?)
does imply choice, but her knowledge of freegans seems limited to the
unsurprisingly narrowminded media attention they've recieved.
this is probably where the second asumption comes from, that freegans are unambitious, lazy, and don't
contribute to society. presuming so reduces everyone down to nothing but consumers.
many freegans do have jobs, and many also contribute to society in ways that can't be measured by
economics, and in ways that benefit the whole of humanity, not just the top 5%.
what they definately don't do is hurt the bottom 80%. dumpster divers are not "bums/freeloaders/losers",
they're not living off others in a way that deprives anyone of anything (apart from maybe each other, if they
get too greedy). they simply live off the waste, the stuff that someone else has decided they don't wont
and rather than passing it on to someone in need (as 'food not bombs' does) has attempted to selfishly destroy it.
dumpster divers cause no harm, we just take advantage (something all good capitalists should understand).
we reduce waste that would otherwise go to landfill and help feed a few hungry mouths.
so why the spiteful comments? where is her hate coming from?
we
apparently call ourselves ,
and here me and her might be able to agree - i hate these words too. there's nothing worse than a loaded word
(such as freegan or frugal) being blanket applied to a large and diverse group of people,
especially if it leads to all of the above assumptions.
but who was it exactly that called us frugal? or even freegan for
that matter? was it one of us using the "propagandist we"? or was it the
mindless media, attracted to catchy names and over simplified concepts, like flies to shit?
and anyway freecycling is just a scaled up gift economics. don't be so fucking uptight and selfish.
three of those anyway).
where would your life of luxury be without the factory workers and the service industry
toiling away beneath you (yes, like slaves) for little reward.
These free-wandering types strike the average person as being losers who don't want to
work a job and who can't make it in the world of hard work and achievement.
So they conjure up every excuse to "live the simpleton life," exclaiming that it "makes them happy"
to be nothing, have nothing, and strive for nothing.
whilst speaking for the "average person". smooth . so am i right to conclude from this that all human progress
and endeavour leads to materialism ? how does she dare claim to know what can and can't make other people happy?
and it doesn't take looking at many surveys to show that all our fantastic progress hasn't actually made us any happier.
Of course, foraging for food involves two things worth pointing out:
trespassing on private property uninvited, and opportunity cost.
The opportunity cost is that it takes a lot of time to bypass the
efficiencies and conveniences of capitalism, and revert to barbarian ways.
as mentioned above, capitalism is only convenient for the top few perecent of the population,
those who live a "life of luxury" (and were most likely born into it), whilst everyone else
in the world struggles and scrapes. as for being barbaric, i think you'll find it is
capitalism that is "brutal, cruel, warlike [and] insensitive". no one ever started a war
because they didn't want something.
Just don't expect that I won't notice - and criticize - their hatred for humans, progress, and our civilized way of life.
i wonder if she also hates zero-carbon footprint people for not embracing cheap flights?
or vegans for boycotting animal cruelty? human progress is taking our world apart.
and i wont apologise for sounding like an anarcho-primitivist
when it's the world, and hence the whole of humanity, that is at stake.
your "civilized way of life" is destroying forests, poisoning and emptying the sea, polluting the air
and, thanks to globalization, oppressing your fellow humans. it also seems to be making you quite hateful.
there is nothing civilized about you at all.
17.06.2008 :
it has been a while since we went out, due to visitors and a general lack of morale.
we were going to cycle all the way down to a large supermarket but by the time it was
dark enough we were too tired to bother. so just the locals then:
9 organic bread rolls (65g each)
8 ciabatta buns
6 buns
3 herby halfbaked baguettes
2 durum breads
1 pumpkin bread
4 danish swirls
2 pecan danish
10 bite size brownies (200g)
240g chocolate slices
32 bananas
1 cucumber
750g green peas
75g pine nuts
2 cloths for cleaning glass
"if you're going to write a story, not just a list, write that one of the dumpster had a pungent smell"
12.06.2008 :
from elsewhere :
...i also pulled two grapefruit from the dumpster on my way out of the store, whilst the guy who'd just thrown them
out had his back turned sweeping the floor. what i couldn't grab without making a noise, in broad daylight with
plenty of people around, was a load of tomatoes, salad, mushrooms, bananas and more grapefruit. dumpster diving in
this town would be all too easy.
but then, walking around with our packs, sleeping bags, etc (ungdomshuset tshirt and "still not loving police")
we do rather stand out. really, we're rather passe. i'm not sure why so many people stare at us so intently.
now the train arrives and julie comes running back from the shop, clutching three oranges and you know exactly
where she got them from.
10.06.2008 :
we must look a bit sussed, walking around at 1am in shorts and tshirt but wearing gloves .
at least we're not dressed all in black. well, not all the time.
500g tricolore pasta
1.8kg chopped cabbage
2 sandwich loaves
3 loaves
45 buns
tin of tuna
2 litre of milk
bag of carrots
bag of fried onion stuff
actually it's a great amount of bread, and our freezer is now totally full. but we're seriously lacking
a (dare i say it) 'sustainable' quantity of fruit and veg. it's time to get the bicycles out.
09.06.2008 :
here is a cautionary tale for the english dumpsters divers (and welsh too, i suppose), regarding
the Theft Act of 1968 and the depressingly hypocritical Waste Recycling Group, contracted by Wrexham Council
who claim to be "committed to dealing with waste in the most economical and environmentally sustainable way -
setting an aspirational target to divert 40% of municipal waste away from landfill". if that's true, why were police
called when Genny Bove, 46, refused to return four plastic garden chairs to the general waste skip (garbage destined for landfill)
where she'd found them? and why, after the council have decided to not press charges
(there are signs around the centre threatening civil action under the Environmental Protection Act for
people removing items, surely a joke?), have the police filed for prosecution under Section 1 of the the 1968 Theft Act?
points system , where arresting and prosecuting a dumpster diver
for theft is worth just as much as apprehending a murderer. just keep telling yourself the system works, i dare you.
First, the police tried to 'sort it out nice and quickly' by getting me to accept a caution which I refused.
Following that, they arrested, photographed, DNA'd, fingerprinted and interviewed me (no comment no comment)
under caution on tape; have bailed me three times so far while they proceed with their 'investigation';
threatened to get a search warrant because - and with admirably straight faces - 'we need to recover the stolen
goods and return them to their rightful owner' (so they can go back to the landfill skip presumably);
tried to set up a video identity parade.
that's what you pay taxes for. you can read about her 'adventures' on
indymedia
(update ) and the
bbc (also various other places,
email me if you want the list).
29.05.2008 :
to prove that where there is will, there is always free food:
28 bananas
3 herby baguettes
2 litres milk
5 cartons of apple juice
rocket
3 cauliflowers
1 lettuce
250g cheese slices (diet cheese, not cheese at all - but shiny!)
10 onions
8 leeks
500g mince meat
400g marinated pig arse
3 lemons
400g chocolate spread
instant coffee
8 peppers (7 red, 1 green)
2 cucumbers
5 apples
1kg strawberry yoghurt
1 rye bread
11 carrots
5kg potatoes (most having seen better days)
sandwich bags
20 litres of soil
2 dish clothes
that was two hours of diving time, plus a whole lot of planning (hi-tech stuff, like studying
satellite photos, but not extending as far as comparing architectural blueprints). we visited six stores,
but due to shortfalls in our contortionist department (also a lack of lube) we only managed to
access five sets of dumpsters. two of which were completely devoid of food, whilst another two were
seriously lacking. the last dumpster, the one with the most food, was mostly just skanky.
it's a store you'd think twice of eating from, even if you took the food straight from the shelf.
but tonight we are in no position to be picky.
meat . this is emil's new experiment. and i find it hard to
disagree with (incidentally, i was surprised when i heard of vegans who don't take dairy from the trash, because i've
met very few vegans who are so for dietary reasons. my bad?). he's being very selective about
the meat he takes, sensible and all that. and really, we do find a lot of meat that's only just gone out
of date and looks good. it smelt real good too, those marinated steaks. but no, it's not for me.
heavy .
27.05.2008 :
i think what we're dealing with here is a minor crisis. something strange has happened, and the result
is that we're not getting any food. the dumpsters are there all the same, like they always are, but now
they're only half full. the same trash is there, all those plastic bags and junk from the staff canteen,
but the food is missing. all of it.
actually become inedible. there's normally plenty of it, but not anymore.
darker territory,
what if we've been rumbled? what if they've decided to finally crack down on us, not by locking the bins
(the padlocks are there, but unlocked, wouldn't we just get around them if they were used?),
but by hoarding the food until the garbage trucks arrive. this is us getting paranoid,
but it's the only reasonable explanation we're yet to come up with.
was a bag with foodstuffs in, but it had
been filled with yoghurt. it wont do.
get on our bikes .
that's all there is for it. hopefully this isn't new store policy or a city wide phenomena.
25.05.2008 :
it seems like we've been going out every night. and it feels like we've not really
been getting anywhere. over the last few days we've been greeted by empty dumpster after empty dumpster,
and what we have found we've really had to rip and dig for. the tally looks something like this:
15 bananas
2 melons
2 lemons
2 kiwis
2 oranges
grapes
5 tomatoes
6 carrots
3 broccolis
a thyme plant
2 long rye breads
2 bunches of roses (tasty!
roll of cling film (plastic wrap, whatever)
50 disposable cleaning napkins (very disposable, apparently)
i was especially happy with the plastic wrap, that stuff is indispensable when you have to
remove a lot of your produce from its packaging. having said that, most stuff is perfectly
fine without its packaging. but for cheese and chopped salad stuffs, just brilliant.
that posh. the stuff is vile.
23.05.2008 :
one of our ongoing projects (meaning: one that hasn't gotten anywhere) has been to develop some
kind of dumpster logo. something akin to these:
already created one (great blog, btw).
it's gorgeous too, but aesthetics aside, it has a few funadmental flaws. i feel really bad
critising the work, but i think it's important that we analyse the implications of using such a stencil
and weigh these up against its potential benefits.
is genius.
however, and this is my main concern, it is more likely to alert the owner of the dumpster,
in a way far beyond simply leaving a mess - it explicitly says "we raid your trash". chances are they wont be happy
and they'll take measures against us. technically it also breaks one of the basic rules of dumspter diving,
that you should clean up after yourself and leave no trace you were ever there.
directional - a symbol (or series of symbols) that can be seen
from a main road and followed. just like a treasure hunt, except with real treausre.
20.05.2008 :
finally something to write home about:
2 tubs of yoghurt
4 eggs
1 litre milk
500g cheese (gouda )
16 bread rolls
9 ciabatta rolls
1 really nice loaf
9 red onions
celery
4 bunches of spring onions
2 pears
icing sugar
panty liners
the milk leaked everywhere, which is annoying because i'd stupidly put it into a paper bag.
the cheese was slightly mouldy, but that was easily fixed. the celery is a little limp, but it'll
be fine for soups etc. there was so many onions, we took 2kg and ended up with 9 after taking out
any that were a little bad.
