I'm not a Freegan.
I'm not a hippie or a druggie.
I'm simply cheap.
Do you dare to glean the fat of our land--and I don't mean the fat people (although you could eat for some time on some of us lard-ohs..."Soylent Green is PEOPLE!" Wait! Lard-Ohs! Sounds like a redneck doughnutty thingy made by the Keebler elves! But I digress.)
You have heard folks talk about it, so now you want to read more about it. Let's begin with some scenarios:
Scenario 1: You are driving down your street and see that your neighbor Dick has put a perfectly good flower pot that you need on the curbside. Are you willing to stop and toss it in the trunk?
Scenario 2: Your neighbors toss out their newspapers in the recycle bin and say to you that you're welcome to use any or all of them. Are you willing to pick up extra coupon inserts from their bins?
Scenario 3: You go to the pizza place for takeout, and the guy behind the counter says, "Hey! Want another pizza nobody is going to eat?" Do you take it?
If you say "yes" to any of these, you are a candidate for gleaning. And I'm not only talking about dumpster diving--a term which doesn't really describe what happens when you find a dumpster of goodies, 'cause I've never actually dove in one before. If I can't reach it with my hand or with my stick (always--always--have a stick!), I let it go.
In an effort at full disclosure, I have entered some large construction dumpsters that had the end doors opened, but that's it, really.
No, much of what I've gleaned has been simply by asking people, "Hey, are you gonna throw that away?" and then taking what they had destined for the dump in the first place. That A.) gets people on your side--you aren't stealing or sneaking or rummaging--you're actually saving them from having to dispose of the stuff. This works well when the construction foreman is around. And it B.) will amaze you what people throw away.
Construction refuse contains some pretty cruddy stuff sometimes, but it often has some incredibly usable stuff. I've been given a large construction-grade wheelbarrow (sans wheel--for some reason, that meant the crew didn't want it any more!), dozens of sliding glass doors (some of which will be in my house--the rest will be put to use as a greenhouse for me and my sis), and literally tons of other stuff.
Now, you might ask me, "Have you ever gotten any FOOD out of a dumpster and eaten it?" The answer, dear ones, is "Sure!" Please fight the gag reflex and let me tell you the story.
When I lived in Hernando, Mississippi, Bucky the Bulldog and I would make the Saturday morning rounds of the construction sites looking for throw-aways. One morning, we pulled behind a shopping center that already had some tenants in it. One of the tenants was a sub shop. I looked in the dumpster and found, to my surprise, that the sub shop threw away large trash bags full of WRAPPED sub bread! Each loaf was wrapped--there were no bugs, no worms, no filth on them of any kind. And they smelled so fresh when the wrapper was removed! At first, I fed some to Bucky, but then I tried some of one loaf. It was fantastic! Cheese, garlic, butter--all types of bread. So that dumpster became one of our Saturday morning faves. I never bought bread after that whilst we lived there.
Here are some other folks who have done/are doing the same:
Frugan Living
Trash Wiki
Upcoming Film on Dumpster Diving
Food--Not Bombs
