What is a Freegan?

[Elok]

Originally posted by MOBIUS
Actually, have you ever tested those sell by dates at all?

You know, those times when you need some milk but the only milk in the house is past its sell by. What are you going to do, just chuck it out even though you want milk in your tea and can't be arsed going down the shop to get some more?

OR - and here's the controversial part - simply sniff it to see if it's off and use accordingly...!? SHOCK HORROR!

I think my record so far with milk is about five days past sell by (unless it is Lidl milk which goes off on the exact day, why is that? )

What about fruit and veg? Are you telling me you are going to chuck it even if it looks perfectly healthy!!???

The list goes on - are you saying we should trust a number just because some shop says so? Or shouldn't we just trust our senses - if it smells off, then it's off...! Good enough for me!

I throw out enough food (sadly!) from the latter method - imagine how bad it would be if I went by the dates. Do you not think that this might be a ploy by the supermarkets to get you to buy more stuff?

Our entire society is based on waste, and most of us still don't realise that the human race as a whole can no longer continue in this manner...

I remembered how annoying those "this person is on your ignore list" tags are and unblocked you. Anyway, the sell-by date is one week before the food will likely go bad, IIRC. You can't sell food the day before it expires, you have to give the consumer some time to eat it. And it's not like you can sniff milk when it's sealed in the jug, so the dates are quite essential. Or would you rather bring the stuff home and find it lumpy?

And milk in tea is for pansies. Honey

[MOBIUS]

Originally posted by Elok


I remembered how annoying those "this person is on your ignore list" tags are and unblocked you. Anyway, the sell-by date is one week before the food will likely go bad, IIRC. You can't sell food the day before it expires, you have to give the consumer some time to eat it. And it's not like you can sniff milk when it's sealed in the jug, so the dates are quite essential. Or would you rather bring the stuff home and find it lumpy?

And milk in tea is for pansies. Honey

Oh pleeease put me back on ignore so I don't have to endure your obviously-not-paying-attention crap...

What, you've never bought stuff that you've eaten immediately on the same day?

Obviously the milk story is milk I have already bought and therefore have opened, so I can sniff it without it being 'sealed in the jug', or whatever bollox you're on about...





Oh, and BTW...

[Zkribbler]

A hippie by any other name
would smell as...pungent.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by MOBIUS


Actually, have you ever tested those sell by dates at all?

You know, those times when you need some milk but the only milk in the house is past its sell by. What are you going to do, just chuck it out even though you want milk in your tea and can't be arsed going down the shop to get some more?

OR - and here's the controversial part - simply sniff it to see if it's off and use accordingly...!? SHOCK HORROR!

I think my record so far with milk is about five days past sell by (unless it is Lidl milk which goes off on the exact day, why is that? )

What about fruit and veg? Are you telling me you are going to chuck it even if it looks perfectly healthy!!???

The list goes on - are you saying we should trust a number just because some shop says so? Or shouldn't we just trust our senses - if it smells off, then it's off...! Good enough for me!

I throw out enough food (sadly!) from the latter method - imagine how bad it would be if I went by the dates. Do you not think that this might be a ploy by the supermarkets to get you to buy more stuff?

Our entire society is based on waste, and most of us still don't realise that the human race as a whole can no longer continue in this manner...

I agree. I have had these eggs in my fridge for three weeks. I figure that if the Chinese have 1,000 year old eggs, three weeks is nothing.

[Soltz]

Potential lawsuits could be driving 'conservative' best-before dates.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Luddites had jobs.

Precisely. Jobs which they didnt want to lose to machines.


Methinks our vocabulary to describe anti-technology people needs considerable expansion.

Myself, Im a "late adopter"

[Jon Miller]

eggs last for months

JM

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Elok
And milk in tea is for pansies.

IIRC it was originally to help get the working man off to a start in the morning. When an empire was built on milky tea you can't really knock it.

[Elok]

Hmm, empires were built on slavery too...

Moby, I'm sure you drink your milk immediately, I'm just saying that from the POV of the LAW there has to be a period of several days in which the food is guaranteed safe, for people who don't consume everything immediately. And I was saying that being able to smell or look at milk doesn't do much good for the consumer picking out a jug to buy. I was aware of the fact that you were talking about milk you had already purchased.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Luddites had jobs.

No they didn't, that's why they where luddites. The luddites where weavers made obsolete by manufactories.

The whole point of the luddite movment was to resist (factory)jobs and wageslavery. (a term coined by the luddite movement, if I remember correctly)




There's alot of presumption here about "freegans" or dumpster divers taking on a role of moral superiority and elitism, and even denying that they are too cheap (or poor) to buy new stuff... where is this coming from?

The very notion of someone rooting around in a dumpster as an act of elitism is absurd - so absurd that's it's naurally something to be joked about. I've heard people brag about dumpstering wine and cheese, and I myself often tell stories of the gourmet cheeses my friends used to find, or the posh meals I've put together wtih random refuse. It's not elitism, it's having a laugh.


Similiarlly, there's alot of presumption about dumpster diving itself - dirty nappies? Please... If you're digging through landfill refuse for food you're not a "freegan", you're either cooky or living in a thirdworld country, unable to feed your family with the wages you make producing things for us in the first world to consume. Grocery stores do not -unless run by some terribly stupid and malicous person - mix food with the garbage from the toilets - that would take a step out of their way to do. A typical dumpster will have some black garbage bags full of miscelanous stuff - wraping, half eaten things, recipts, coffee cups, ect, and seperate from that, cardboard boxes full of the produce being thrown out. many places will even make the food accesible to people - at the jean talon market in Montreal, for instance, you'll find boxes and crates piled up in towers full of food being thrown away. I chatted with one of the workers on the clean up shift and he laughed at all the food being thrown away - he said that he doesn't need to buy groceries, because he's eating food all day long on the job. The pears being thrown out enmasse that day where being thrown out because they're turning brown... but that's when they're the best to eat. They just don't meet our pristine aesthetic standards. But I guess he, being an immigrant from north africa, can appretiate food even if it doesn't look like it does in the commercials. He's licking his fingers as he's carting the dolly away.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Elok
And I was saying that being able to smell or look at milk doesn't do much good for the consumer picking out a jug to buy.

All the more reason to go to the market, where you can talk to the farmer and find out exactly how fresh it is.

[Arrian]

I wonder if theres a different emotional response to recycling versus reuse, though?

I mean taking your beer bottle, trucking it to a plant where its ground up, made into glass for a new beer bottle, is all techie, capital intensive, and cool. But say, taking your beer bottle and using it as a candle holder or something, thats all hippie dippy arsty-crafty girly, right? Or even washing it out to use for your homebrew?

Given the amount of beer I drink, I'd have way, way, way too many candle holders (speaking of which, I have far too many of those as it is, somehow, despite never having purchased one). I've never tried my hand at homebrewing. I may yet, and if I do, I'd be happy to reuse some bottles for it.

I do not think that using a beer bottle for some alternative use is "hippy artsy crafty girly" - methinks you're projecting something there.

If someone can come up with some practical uses for beer bottles (beyond candle holders, bottles for home brew, or evil things to torment Bushmen with*), I'm all ears. If said use is something that I have a want/need for that I would otherwise have to buy something new for (as opposed to something I already own and thus would be duplicative - such as, say, a rolling pin), I'd be open to reusing beer bottles for that purpose. If not, I will continue to recycle them (and thus, "lose half the battle" apparently).

At least beer bottles actually get recycled, though, along with other glass and some plastic containers, cardboard, newspaper (though I use that for lighting fires in my fireplace - which is, of course, bad, b/c it's purely for fun, not for heating the house). There is a lot of trash that doesn't.

-Arrian

* - yes, yes, I know it was a coke bottle.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Arrian


Given the amount of beer I drink, I'd have way, way, way too many candle holders (speaking of which, I have far too many of those as it is, somehow, despite never having purchased one). I've never tried my hand at homebrewing. I may yet, and if I do, I'd be happy to reuse some bottles for it.

I do not think that using a beer bottle for some alternative use is "hippy artsy crafty girly" - methinks you're projecting something there.

If someone can come up with some practical uses for beer bottles (beyond candle holders, bottles for home brew, or evil things to torment Bushmen with*), I'm all ears. If said use is something that I have a want/need for that I would otherwise have to buy something new for (as opposed to something I already own and thus would be duplicative - such as, say, a rolling pin), I'd be open to reusing beer bottles for that purpose. If not, I will continue to recycle them (and thus, "lose half the battle" apparently).

At least beer bottles actually get recycled, though, along with other glass and some plastic containers, cardboard, newspaper (though I use that for lighting fires in my fireplace - which is, of course, bad, b/c it's purely for fun, not for heating the house). There is a lot of trash that doesn't.

-Arrian

* - yes, yes, I know it was a coke bottle.

well of course beer bottles was a silly example. To avoid debates about the merit of used furniture, obsolete electronics, and the like. Theres lots of stuff one can reuse, and a big movement to do just that.

I too recycle beer bottles, no one in my household is into making candle holders(which should really be made from Chianti bottles anyway), and I dont homebrew (well now that you mention it, maybe I should think about it)

And I doubt it would be worth the trouble of listing them on freecycle - most homebrewers have no trouble getting old beer bottles.

I have recently listed some jello molds on freecycle (dont ask) - no response so far. I will list them again. We gave away a fondue pot (we had two, again a long story) and I've picked up computer games. We've both picked up and given away moving materials, via FC and CL. And you know, it felt good, making sure something wasnt wasted.

A small start, but if everyone were to do this it might help.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by General Ludd
No they didn't, that's why they where luddites. The luddites where weavers made obsolete by manufactories.

I believe I said that, Generalisimo. They had jobs. None of that voluntary joblessness crap.

[lord of the mark]

An example of what happens on freecycle.


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