The Journal

Issue date: 4/19/07 Section: Opinion/Editorial

Mallory Skinner

The title "freegan" is a combination of the words "free" and "vegan." Vegans avoid products derived from animal sources or products tested on animals. Averse to products created by a profit-driven economy, which they believe disregards the safety of animals, humans and the environment, freegans choose not to purchase goods. Instead, freegans subsist on other people's garbage, thereby reducing the amount of consumer waste generated.


Freegans employ alternative strategies for living based on minimal consumption of resources and limited participation in a conventional, consumer-driven economy.


One area in which freegans attempt to reduce consumption is food. Disgusted by the food they see wasted, freegans choose to dig food out of the garbage of retailers, residences, offices and other facilities rather than buy goods at the grocery store.


In order to curtail waste, freegans rummage through grocery stores' trash, salvaging fruits, vegetables and baked goods - hundreds of dollars of wasted food. Many bakeries have a policy that they don't sell day-old bread. As a result, unsold loaves of fresh bread are pitched daily. Freegans rescue this food from the trash and eat it themselves or distribute it to others.


Though some people would balk at the idea of eating another person's garbage, the food taken by freegans is fresh and typically still in its original wrapping. Besides, far more disgusting than eating from the trash is the magnitude of human wastefulness. Studies by the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimate stores throw away 55 billion pounds of food each year, and annually, Americans waste $43 billion worth of food.


These statistics are staggering, especially when one considers the same USDA study reveals 11 percent of American households were deemed "food insecure" in 2006. This means 11 percent of Americans, approximately 9 percent of Missourians, were forced to skip meals or cut back on the quality and quantity of food. With such a high rate of hunger, it seems ridiculous for businesses to throw away so much food.


It's pathetic that American society produces an amount of waste so quantum that many people can be fed and supported simply on its trash. Freegans help divert still-edible food away from the landfills to people's dinner tables. Part of the freegan credos is to donate the food found as well as the money saved by dumpster diving.

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