Consumption & Sustainability: FREEGANS

Have you ever heard of a freegan? The word freegan was made from combining the words “free” and “vegan”. Freeganism is a consumer culture that can be defined as “a total boycott of an economic system where the profit motive had eclipsed ethical considerations and where massively complex systems of productions ensure that all the products we buy will have detrimental impacts most of which me may never even consider.” (cite: freegan.info) Many of these people believe that consumerism has made us very wasteful. These freegans use alternative strategies of living that use up minimal resources. Freegans practice many different methods of this such as, waste reclamation, waste minimization, eco-friendly transportation and rent-free housing. Waste reclamation is essentially dumpster diving or, searching though trash to find food. Waste minimization consists of free markets where people share and trade goods, and other methods like the Craigslist free section. Eco-friendly transportation involves community bike programs and other ways of sharing and minimizing transportation pollution and cost. And finally, rent-free housing mostly involves squatting, or restoring abandoned buildings and living in them forfree.

I found this consumer culture to be very interesting because it is a completely different culture and lifestyle than what I am familiar with. It is such an extreme form of green culture; I find it very fascinating and I think that it is something I want to learn even more about. After reading several articles about freegans, I was curious about several things in particular: how much useable food is actually in the trash, and how do free markets work?

I found an article explaining more about how much useable food is thrown away. The article claims that 50% of US food goes to waste. This means that there are large amounts of perfectly good foods that get thrown away. So, if these freegans can get to this food waste in time before it goes bad, then it is good to eat.

I also did some research to help me find out more about freegans and free markets. There is a free market in New York called the Really Really Free Market that doesn’t use trading, but uses sharing instead. Their company description states, “The Really Really Free Market is a bazaar & celebration, where capitalist notions of interaction are discarded, and we have fun trying new models of exchange. Expect and share gently used clothing, books, household items, small working electronics, toys, CD’s and DVD’s, crafts, tools, food, skills and more.“ Free markets generally happen once a month and people bring things that can be used again by other people. These markets mostly focus on the idea of giving.

After doing some research and learning about freegan culture, I think it has changed my perspective on green consumption a bit. I realize that I could never live in such an extreme lifestyle, but it does make me think about some not so dramatic ways that I could improve my consumption. I have a lot of respect for people who can go freegan and live their lives like that. But I can tell you that personally, I could not do it. The best I can do is to make changes in the way I live my life to use less resources and be a bit more green.