From the glowing morass of neon lights in New York to the cobbled, dimly-lit streets of Belfast; high streets around the world made bumper sales from frantic shoppers in the January sale - but not from a band of rummaging anti-capitalists who were far too busy… buying nothing.
Appalled by today’s throw-away consumer culture, this group of eco-centrics, known as ‘freegans’, forage through dustbins for leftovers in a bid to turn one person’s trash into their own treasure.
“Any consumer commodity really can be found in our waste, in abundant volumes, to the point that shopping becomes unnecessary. I pretty much don’t shop” said Adam Weissman, a full-time freegan and founder of Freegan.Info, from New Jersey, USA.
Indeed, there is something rotten about the amount of food wasted in the UK. The food for the homeless charity, Fare Share, estimates that in Britain alone 17 million tonnes of surplus food is dumped on landfills every year; 4 million of which are edible, while four million people cannot afford ‘a healthy diet’.
This paradigm is the driving force behind freeganism - the name combines ‘free’ with ‘vegan’. The philosophy recognises that by utilising waste otherwise consigned to the dumping ground, no extra strain will be put on the planet’s resources. Buying as little as posible is therefore seen to be the way forward.
Foraging is not the exception, but the norm, as freegans scavenge their way through discarded waste outside shops, supermarkets and restaurants for reusable items, as often as regular consumers go to the grocery store.
“A certain bin can give you everything you need in perfect quality – enough to keep you fed, watered and enough for you to share around with friends,” said Alfred Montagu, a Belfast-based freegan, originally from Sydney, Australia.
Alf insists that they do not necessarily go out of their way to forage, but for the small effort of rummaging, the sky is the limit.
“Recently, we found a fully working DVD player and literally £1000 worth of frozen steaks and chicken. It was actually worth buying a freezer to store it all,” he said.
Alf has been a freegan for 5 years, since leaving his job in marketing, and has been joined by Martin Filla, from Sydney, who dropped out of university 17 years ago. Since taking on their new-found ideology, they have not looked back.
“I really wanted to be free from a way of life which was a perpetual rat race in which I was tied by the fact that I needed money to survive,” said Alf.
Both do not work for a living. Instead, both have taken to travelling around the world in a camper van, practising and preaching their frugal philosophy. Currently touring the UK and Ireland, Martin admits that many acquaintances along the way see the logic behind their decision to convert to freeganism, although the activity of foraging for food is a prospect many find hard to swallow.
“We get reactions from abject horror and disgust to more of a growing appreciation,” said Martin. “But a lot of people, who initially react like I did when I first came face to face with dumpster diving, come to see the inherent worth in it.”
It would seem ironic that, for the past 5 years of being a freegan, the only two times Alf suffered food poisoning was from food purchased – not foraged.
Despite foraging being the freegan equivalent to grocery shopping, Adam blames the media for the common misconception that freeganism is little more than ‘dumpster diving’.
“Defining freeganism as ‘dumpster diving’ is similar to defining vegetarianism as eating asparagus. ‘Dumpster diving’ is an important part of freeganism but it’s by no means the definition,” he said.
While it is not known how widespread is the world’s population of dedicated freegans, certain aspects of it are rife within society. Many people take part in practising aspects of freeganism on a daily basis – regardless whether they relate to the philosophy as a whole, or not.
From activities as radical as squatting in buildings to ‘dumpster diving’ or fare dodging, to simply riding a bike to work, mending your clothes or sharing – these are all integral parts of freeganism, which even you could be practicing on a daily basis, without even knowing it.
