What is a Freegan?

[Q Classic]

Freegans == Idiocy.

[General Ludd]

Love the hate for recycling here.


Diverting resources from the waste stream

What's wrong with those willing to utilize garbage? Afterall, that's what our society is made of. The only distinction is an arbitrary one - whether the gabrage is cherished and located in someone's home, still freshly wrapped in plastic on the store shelf, or been sent to the heap after someone's lost their interest in it, it's still garbage through and through.



It's interesting how if you take an orange from the market stall and put it out back to be taken along with the garbage, the orange's identity has suddenly changed from food to filth, even though it's the same orange that it was 2 minutes ago.

[Elok]

Except that it's now swimming around in the contents of the garbage from the diaper-changing station in the market's bathroom. Aside from that, yes, it's the same orange. I suppose it doesn't matter provided you don't grate the peel for zest or anything, but it still doesn't sound sanitary.

It's claiming moral superiority from trash-digging that makes freegans hateful to me. Yeah, maybe you're genuinely concerned with the wastefulness of our society and its lifestyle and so on, but my grandfather dug through trash and he was just an incredibly cheap old man. Odds are that, underneath the talk, your average "freegan" recycling a sofa from the dumpster behind the furniture store is just too stingy to buy even a used sofa and doesn't have the standards to object to torn upholstery, ugly fabric and a funny smell. If it works for you, great, but putting on airs because you live like a rodent is messed up.

[Theben]

Plus when the plasma incinerators are up and on full production we won't have any more garbage problems, and some more electricity to boot. So on their 'moral superiority'. They're just dumb.

[Sandman]

It's claiming moral superiority from trash-digging that makes freegans hateful to me.

That's rich coming from the person who thinks non-believers are moral pygmies.

A lot of food is comically over-packed anyway. Just hang around outside a big posh supermarket and there'll be loads of stuff thrown out that's impervious to water and air.

[ZEE]

How you you not smile when you read a GEneral Ludd post.

great stuff man great stuff

[Nubclear]

its you, you are the freegan

[Elok]

Originally posted by Sandman
That's rich coming from the person who thinks non-believers are moral pygmies.

I think no such thing. I think naturalistic forms of morality are intrinsically flawed, not that those who follow them are necessarily bad people. Get it straight. But do it in some other thread, there's no need to jack this one.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
So they're like super annoying hobos?

Yuppy hobos.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Elok
Except that it's now swimming around in the contents of the garbage from the diaper-changing station in the market's bathroom. Aside from that, yes, it's the same orange. I suppose it doesn't matter provided you don't grate the peel for zest or anything, but it still doesn't sound sanitary.

It's claiming moral superiority from trash-digging that makes freegans hateful to me. Yeah, maybe you're genuinely concerned with the wastefulness of our society and its lifestyle and so on, but my grandfather dug through trash and he was just an incredibly cheap old man. Odds are that, underneath the talk, your average "freegan" recycling a sofa from the dumpster behind the furniture store is just too stingy to buy even a used sofa and doesn't have the standards to object to torn upholstery, ugly fabric and a funny smell. If it works for you, great, but putting on airs because you live like a rodent is messed up.

Very funny.

However, you are assuming that dumpster diving is all that they do.

I would imagine that socially motivated people would be doing a bit more.

[Elok]

You would imagine, yes, but afaik freegans are all about finding complicated ways to avoid buying anything.

[Provost Harrison]

Is that bloke stood upright in the skip wearing a Rolex?

[MOBIUS]

Man, the ignorance displayed on this thread is staggering just for the sake of a couple of cheap laughs…

General Ludd.

What is at issue here is the sheer criminal waste of our throwaway society…

I remember reading about this a while back and essentially we are not talking about rooting around some disgusting bin full of soiled nappies and rotting produce, but usually going behind the Supermarkets to get the stuff that has literally hit the sell by date and is therefore legally not allowed to be sold.

This equates to a vast amount of wastage daily from every supermarket up and down the land that would otherwise be consigned to landfill, which is space we are running out of as well as downright wrong.

Also, IIRC some of these supermarkets actually make it easy for these people to take the food because they know that the less is there to be taken to the landfill, the less they have to pay for dumping it!

We can’t afford to live in a throwaway society anymore – and the sooner people wake up and realise, the better!

[Caligastia]

If everyone suddenly cut back their waste to nil, these bums would have to get a job.

[Sandman]

There's always going to be some 'throw it away at midnight' people to cough up free stuff.