Freegans and Dumpster Diving

Freegans (a reference that combines being free of monetary cost and the vegan movement) are people who attempt to live without paying for material goods such as food, clothing, household items, and rent. The Freegan Movement seeks to provide an alternative model to capitalism, overconsumption, and consumerism. Instead, freegans offer a model based on anarchy, sharing, and community. One of the main strategies of freegans is dumpster diving.

Dumpster diving refers to the act of obtaining useful resources such as food, clothing, or furniture that have been discarded by others. It is also referred to as urban scavenging, waste picking, waste reclamation, recycling, rag picking, salvaging, binning, reclaiming, informal resource recovery, and poaching. Dumpster diving crosses material, legal, and cultural boundaries. Oftentimes one must [Page 672]trespass ...