What is Freeganism? Shirley Gibb talks to people involved in the movement
The two security guards who found 14 year old James raiding bins at the back of a Waitrose store must have been surprised by what happened next.
James’s Granny appeared from the shop, and when asked if she knew her grandson was involved in an illegal activity, said yes, and proceeded to lecture the men on the evils of food-waste.
James is an articulate, politically aware teenager who is especially interested in green issues. One way in which he incorporates his ideals into his lifestyle is by adopting the Freegan idea of bin-raiding, also known as dumpster diving, or skipping.
Living as he does in Edinburgh, there are plenty of supermarket bins to choose from, and some of his finds have been surprising.
“I once found an unopened carton containing 12 bottles of pomegranate juice. It would have cost about £30 to buy. We’ve had 18 kg of onions, which lasted for ages, and smoothies which were still one month within their sell by date. Ready meals are easy to find, and bread is everywhere.”
James’s family are sympathetic to his ideas. His Granny has even been known to keep him company on a bin-raid.
“The first time I went I was amazed. When James opened the lid of the bin, there was a pristine blue bin liner filled with perfectly good food. “
Although the security guards referred to it as illegal, bin raiding is a grey area as far as the law goes.
Supermarkets would probably be more likely to charge someone with trespassing than with stealing.
The UK Freegans website says that as far as they know, no-one in the UK has ever been charged with stealing rubbish, and if they were it would open up an ethical can of worms.
Freegans believe that:
“The real ‘crime’ is the (technically legal) stealing of the land by governments and corporations away from local communities, especially in developing countries; the importing of goods half way round the world at great expense to global ecology; and then the needless discarding of often perfectly usable goods and resources back into the ground or atmosphere, leading to pollution and the emission of harmful gases.”
Bin raiding is the most widely reported and best known aspect of Freeganism, but the lifestyle involves much more.
The definition on the website says that a freegan is “someone who tries to live simply, reducing their consumption and the pressure they place on the environment, through such things as recycling, sharing resources and using one’s time to help others.”
John Cossham is 43, married with two children and is a practising freegan. He describes a lifestyle that involves sustainability and the elimination of waste wherever possible, but he is not so extreme he will never buy anything.
“We do buy some food, but I grow fruit and veg. I also have an arrangement with several local businesses – a greengrocer, health food shop, independent supermarket, a cafe – where I take their waste biodegradables for composting. Taking away over 100 kg of waste a week saves them money and means their bins don’t smell! In this waste is a fair bit of stuff that I can make into soups and stews, or dry out on my stove. I make a lot of dried fruit and some stove dried tomatoes.”
The family’s heating is provided by two smoke-free woodstoves. John spends about a morning a week collecting logs on his bike trailer, cutting them up and stacking them.
They have a solar hot water panel, which cost a lot, but provides free hot water when the stoves aren’t on.
They also run a food cooperative, so get some food in bulk, which saves on packaging as well as money.
John’s wife would not describe herself as a freegan, but believes in a green lifestyle and is keen on re-use – she often uses charity shops.
Asked about his children, John’s reply is probably similar to that of many parents of 10 and 12 year olds.
“My children find some aspects of my lifestyle a bit embarrassing. “
But he hopes that in time they might embrace an eco lifestyle themselves.
Asked how much time is taken up with obtaining things he needs, he is keen to make the distinction between “wants” and “needs”.
“My needs are a roof over my head, a minimum amount of food, social interaction, meaningful activity, and human affection and love.”
He does do some work for money, and so has a small income. He is a children’s entertainer, teaches composting, and gives occasional talks on cutting your carbon and related subjects. He has just started a new business promoting green funeral alternatives.
But he also contributes voluntarily to his community by being involved in several local economic enterprises, including a Credit Union and Lets group, and running a conflict resolution group. He is currently helping to organise the World Naked Bike Ride.
He picks up litter, mainly aluminium cans, and his composting is stopping five tons or more of biodegradables going into landfill each year. He has a compost toilet, which takes the pressure off the sewage works.
“Freeganism” he believes “isn’t just about taking freely, it’s about giving freely too.”
John has recently been offered a Fellowship of the Royal Society of Arts for his voluntary work.
There are, of course, hours of discussion to be had about alternative economic systems and how they might work.
But at a time of bankers’ bonuses, MPs’ duckhouses and government ministers up for hire, it is encouraging to know that there are people out there not just talking, but doing something practical to try to improve a world of inequality, overconsumption and greed.
Perhaps James’s generation, spurred on by the amount of waste they come across during their bin raiding, will start to build a better system.
A system which needn’t be lacking in enjoyment. James recently mentioned to a fellow bin raider outside a supermarket that there were potatoes to be had in the bins round the back.
“It’s OK” was the reply, ”I think I’ll go back to Marks and Spencer. I got a nice lobster there the other day.”
Living an eco lifestyle needn’t mean dropping your standards.
I understand all the arguments about the gross waste of modern consumer capitalism, but encouraging people to go raking in bins is hardly going to have the multi-national supporters of the status quo shaking in their boots.
I like the green socialism espoused by your magazine but let’s not confuse the fundamental tenets of socialism with the lifestyle choices that some socialists may choose to make.
I would like to thank Marie McRindle for her letter to DGS. It’s good when people not only read the magazine, but are interested enough to respond to the articles in it.
I would just like to say that in writing the article on Freeganism in the last issue, I was not “encouraging people to go raking in bins.” Nor was I suggesting that all socialists should opt for a freegan lifestyle. I was simply describing freeganism, and attempting to explain the reasons why some people choose it as a lifestyle.
This magazine has the word “green” in its title, and it should therefore contain articles with a green theme. People who espouse freeganism have strong views on the way the world works, and are trying to do something about it. I see nothing wrong with the DGS passing their message on to readers.
And as for “the multi-national supporters of the status quo shaking in their boots”, I can remember when only small groups of people campaigned against smoking, e numbers in food, and dogs messing up pavements, to mention only a few issues. Society’s views on all of these have now changed, thanks to those small numbers persisting and becoming large numbers. Perhaps the multi-nationals should be worried by freegans.
I hope Marie will continue to read and enjoy the DGS,
Skip raiding has always been a way for the poor to survive, but modern consumer capitalism is so fucking wasteful the poor can eat just as well as a Lord. Why buy Tesco’s value fishfingcrap when you can have M&S Super Yummy Organic Hand Reared Filleted Fingers of Fish in Focaccia breadcrumbs for free.
The waste that is chucked is disgusting – yet all over Scotland people go hungry. A recent survey of parents of disabled children found that nearly 30% of them skipped meals to ensure they met their children didnt go hungry, while 50% of them had worried in the past year about how they were going to buy food, yet all around us there is perfectly good food being binned because it makes no business sense for them to give it away or sell it for less.
Food is a basic need – it was hunger that drove the Yarrow marchers and its hunger that capitalism uses to threaten us with as a last resort; the need ot eat is used as a justification for strike breaking, for taking shitty jobs, for keeping your head down and kowtowing to the man – you need to participate in the capitalist economy, or jump through benefit hoops – in order to feed yourself
….only actually you dont. You can just say fuck you to the man, and nip round the back to his bins.
Ha ha ha I found this article fascinating. Freeganism, an interesting choice of lifestyle which I have seen occasionally documented in the TV and magazines. It’s a useful point of cultural reference I think, when we want to highlight the wasteful nature of consumer capitalist society in Scotland.
In Indonesia I see people live the freegan lifestyle through sheer and terrifying necessity. There is no reasonable rubbish collection system in Indonesia, it’s simply a case of hang your plastic bag out side the house…what the rats and cats don’t eat the rubbish men collect. Sometimes when the rats die the cats eat them to…anyway…the rubbish men have no automated crushing mechanism on the vans so they simply stand on top of all the rubbish, and sift through it with their hands, for and pieces of plastic or paper they can sell…the stench of the rubbish vans is overwhelming. Its the same across the whole Nation of Indonesia. The newspapers cry that the dominant ideology is the best way to beat poverty….yet know body thought or bothered to have a hygienic rubbish collection, with proper bins and a mechanical lorries.
Walking through the streets of Jakarta you will often see people counting plastic cups to sell, picking card out of bins, or burning waste which cannot be collected in the streets. This all only yards away from gleaming towers of glass where banks have their headquarters and the good and great of Jakarta wine and dine with almost unlimited resources around them…planning trips to Europe, while their Limousine waits outside….I saw a watch for sale in The city which cost the equivalent of $300,000. There need be no other stark reminder of the dangers of inequality in society.
Freeganisim….interesting, whether by choice or not.
Good points, Steve. And an entirely different perspective on Freeganism – ‘whether voluntary or not’.
I wouldn’t myself encourage Freenganism as an ideal form of protest (or as a particularly efficacious one – it doesn’t cost the supermarkets anything), but I think Shirley’s article was good and clearly has sposored some thought and debate around the issue, which is surely the point.