Live Cheaply: Eat out of a Dumpster

In the past, only liberal arts majors had to scrounge around for food in garbage bins. Not anymore. Enter the freegans (free + vegan) the newest iteration of hippies who make political statements about the excessive waste produced by Western consumer society by eating trash.

Spreading faster than the Iphone and Hannah Montana, "Freeganism" is infecting even young doctors, lawyers, businessmen, and graduates with “real” degrees all around the world. Dumpster diving is the new hot thing in the UK, where many recent British grads refuse to pay money for food that gets wasted every day.

More radical, though, are the freegans who practice “voluntary joblessness” (funny, in the capitalist world that sounds a lot like “unemployment”). They claim that all of us are simply cogs in the great corporate machine “of violence, death, exploitation, and destruction” who sacrifice both our lives to pay bills and our freedom by being bossed around by greedy managers.

The solution? Become a hobo – err, I mean a freegan! Once you can account for all your “basic necessities” without spending a dime (too bad they don’t offer a survival guide for doing so), you can devote your life to community service, making tie-dye t-shirts, smoking weed, or practicing whatever it is these hippies of the new millennium preach.

Is this the ultimate in living well inexpensively? I have my doubts, but at least now all you Gender Studies majors can rest assured that you will have a “career” after college. Stick it to the man!

Laugh it up (or take it seriously) at freegan.info

Waste Not, Want Not [via The Guardian]