Freegans save the planet and some cash

As hungry students stroll through Schenley Plaza looking for a quick bite to eat between… As hungry students stroll through Schenley Plaza looking for a quick bite to eat between classes, little do they know that a ravishing feast awaits them within the depths of each passing trash bag.’ An edge of a cinnamon raisin bagel smothered with garden veggie cream cheese, a slab of smoked salmon on top of cucumber sushi, a few pieces of lettuce from a hummus gyro salad and the remains of a sausage pizza slice linger together in the trash next to the Bagel Factory just waiting for someone to discover them. These days, that special someone might turn out to be a Freegan, a person who rejects all forms of capitalism and consumerism in an attempt to create a more beneficial alternative for the future. ‘If capitalism doesn’t fall, we will not survive,’ said Adam Weissman, an advocate for the Freegan.info Web site, a volunteer-run project of the Activism Center at Wetlands Preserve in Brooklyn, N.Y.’ ‘Capitalism will collapse under its own weight, because it will exhaust our resources,’ he said. ‘If people cannot sustain themselves, they will see that capitalism is not the only way to live. They will see that capitalism promotes inequality and injustice.’ People who practice Freeganism, including Weissman, want to preserve the planet’s resources, protest the unbalanced distribution in America, deter the environmental impacts of everyday products, fix the garbage crisis, improve worsening conditions in the rainforest and end national and worldwide hunger, says the Web site. To accomplish these goals, Freegans engage in certain practices aimed at creating a more cooperative, egalitarian and communal way of living. These practices include Dumpster-diving, wild foraging, living in abandoned buildings, trading goods at free markets, hopping trains and riding bikes.’ ‘Freeganism is a philosophy and worldview,’ said Weissman. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘We are building an alternative economic model. Not spending money doesn’t get your health taken care of or give you a place to live, but it helps to facilitate a way to survive outside of capitalism.” Since the Web site’s creation three or four years ago, volunteers from all over New York are working to educate people on the benefits of the Freeganism phenomenon that is showing up all over the country, including at Pitt.’ Although converting to Freeganism might sound like a major lifestyle adjustment, some people, like Pitt student Mark Rawlings, choose to adopt only a few Freegan practices to trigger societal change. Rawlings said he only buys local food and rejects anything that is derived from animals, like leather and cashmere.’ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘It’s just not needed and excessive,’ he said. ‘You have to think about what goes into creating a leather jacket compared to what goes into creating a cotton jacket.’ Although Freegans refuse to support the economy at all, Rawlings thinks that having a local economy is essential to improving the status quo. ‘The sooner we can start supporting local farms, the better it will get,’ he said. Rawlings also suggested that students shop at farmers markets to find local goods for cheap prices. In fact, students can visit a farmers market in Oakland every Friday behind Sennott Square where they can buy local meat, milk and cheese, among other foods.’ Most importantly, however, Rawlings stressed the importance of realizing where food originates before deciding to buy it.’ ‘It’s just not that economical to ship avocados from who knows where they’re coming from,’ he said. For Freegans who want to be more active activists, Freegan.info lists several events each month to introduce Freegan values and ideas to the public in New York. For example, volunteers hold a bicycle repair workshop twice a week where they use parts of bikes that are donated by stores or recovered by people who find them abandoned on the street, said Weissman. People can also learn how to forage and understand the local ecosystem as an alternative to the global economy by taking tours through urban parts of town and attending workshops on how to create rooftop planters to grow food. ‘ ‘All of this promotes sustainable transportation, mutual aid, voluntary cooperation and communal ideas,’ said Weissman. Additionally, volunteers sponsor reading groups to discuss books related to Freegan concerns, show movies on waste recovery and sustainability, plan events with guest speakers who are experts on mutual aid, lead trash tours around the city to help people think about sustainability under industrial capitalism, and host introductory workshops for people who are curious about Freegan practices. ‘We are going to run out of oil in about 40 years, and we do not have alternative resources to facilitate the bridge to create a non-fossil fuel economy,’ said Weissman. ‘If we don’t radically transform the way we live now, and if we don’t make preparations for a post-industrialized world, we will see a future of brutal competition for resources.’ Not everyone, however, believes that Freeganism can solve all the problems of a faltering economic system and declining environmental conditions. Punit Singh, vice president of the Undergraduate Economics Society at Pitt, thinks the Freegan response to consumerism and capitalism is not only radical and extreme, but also impressively difficult. ‘How significant their actions may demonstrate to be at a nationwide level, let alone at a community level, may be minimal in the short run, especially since they are outnumbered ridiculously in our consumerism-based America,’ he said. Nevertheless, Singh agreed that the underlying message that Freegans want to spread and practice is necessary to influence others’ individual lifestyles. ‘Clearly, problems in regards to distribution of resources, wealth, garbage, pollution, environment and hunger exist throughout the world,’ he said. ‘In the end, we’re all citizens of a bigger community and have social and moral responsibilities toward those individuals that live hundreds of thousands of miles away. Increasing awareness and taking action is necessary and needs to start somewhere.” ‘ Singh added that although capitalism allows for a free market and encourages innovation and competition, it provides an unfair distribution of wealth, promotes consumerism and entails greed. ‘Most people associate themselves with materials and money and set goals to attain one of the two,’ he said. ‘Freegans claim that consumerism is leading to problems with the environment and available resources, and I agree with them.” Like Freegans, Singh recognized that fossil fuel exhaustion will inevitably lead to a high competition for resources that will cause more dependence on other countries. ‘It’s just like in a chess game,’ he said. ‘Each time you lose a pawn or any other piece, your options become limited. If resources become scarce and diplomatic situations throughout the world become hostile, survival will indeed be limited.’ Regardless how many Freegan practices a person chooses to accept, the Freeganism movement continues to grow throughout the country and now extends to reach people in regions all over the world. ‘Freegans try to opt out of capitalism every way they can,’ said Weissman. ‘It’s not because we don’t want to contribute to society. It’s because we do want to, but we feel that employment and consumerism under capitalism is coerced. The nature of capitalism is inherent and unavoidable exploitation.’