Free Republic

‘I got £10,000-plus of food for free’: the bin diver making the most of thrown-away groceries As supermarket prices soar, some Britons are hunting out food that would otherwise go to waste. We talk to one of themTim Barratt* lives on a diet of organic steak and ethically reared £25 roast chickens, asparagus and fresh pasta costing £7 a pack. But the 22-year-old hasn’t spent any money on food – with a few exceptions such as ground coffee, spices and rice – for a year and a half. He has eaten the equivalent, he thinks, of upwards of £10,000...

Freeganism goes beyond the vegan diet – it’s about making sustainable changes to limit our “footprint” on the world. That is according to Dundee-based Violet Fraser who describes herself as freegan. On World Vegan Day, we’re taking a look at this environmentally-conscious movement linked to veganism. Freegans don’t just avoid animal by-products, they also avoid anything that damages the environment. “A lot of where I come from with freeganism actually started more from a wider environmental perspective,” said Violet, 34. “From my point of view, it’s to do with climate change. “It’s so I can think to myself as I...

The first time Christen Malone picked food out of a dumpster was when her daughter, now 4, was an infant. The baby was a car napper. She would fall asleep and Ms. Malone, a marketing consultant who lives in Beechview and has a cottage in Chautauqua — both were fully furnished for under $2,000 — would pull up behind a Giant Eagle, pick through the trash, throw some produce in the trunk of a luxury car and go on with her day. Dumpster diving is particularly fruitful in the winter, she says, when milk, eggs and other perishables are kept...

An upstate New York woman has revealed how her decade-long dumpster diving habit has allowed her to eat everything from fresh produce to filet mignon — while only spending about $25 a week on food. Filmmaker Theresa Kadish, 31, has been rifling through trash for years and says the food she finds makes up a third of her diet. She picks out perishable goods like fruit, vegetables, eggs, and meats from dumpsters, and has even served what she has scavenged to guests. 'Seriously, there's no difference between dumpstered and non-dumpstered food, and I don't assign preferential ethical or cultural value...

In a Chicago dumpster one year ago, Angel Williams said she found a piece of pop culture history: the very first issue of Rolling Stone magazine, published in Nov. 1967 with a cover image of John Lennon from the film “How I Won the War.” “I had no idea who this guy was and so I posted it and I had so many people saying, ‘Oh my goodness, that’s John Lennon!’” Williams said. “So when I looked it up, it was worth a nice amount of money, so I kept it.” If authentic, the magazine could fetch more than $600,...

A self-proclaimed “dumpster diver” has shown off her massive food haul after nabbing $1,000 worth of fancy food for free. The woman, who goes by the name Dumpster Diving Freegan on TikTok, rummaged through bins at her local Whole Foods store and found a range of bakery items, a case of baby food, and even loo roll which the store was throwing out. SNIP “And the worst part is, none of this stuff was expired. Everything that I found was at least two days before its ‘best buy’ date and could have easily been donated, frozen, or given to people...

UnXpected is an original AsiaOne series where we speak to people with unconventional interests to find out what keeps them going despite the sometimes negative perceptions of othersHis life is defined by three F-words - free(dom), frugality and freeganism. As a freegan, Daniel Tay gets most of what he needs in life - such as food, another F-word, for free. Part of his lifestyle also involves eschewing consumerism for frugalism and perhaps even one step further, choosing not to spend unless necessary. "Most people see frugality as being cheapskate, a freeloader, or like you're 'kiam siap' (stingy)," says Daniel, who...

The idea of rummaging around in a dumpster may gross you out, but freegans -- or dumpster divers -- are only too keen to roll up their sleeves and get stuck in. They have become masters in the art of getting food by salvaging it rather than buying it, a militant act that seeks to combat food waste. In a bid to cut food waste, some people have decided to delve into the dumpsters left outside major supermarkets in order to fish out any unsold foodstuffs. This ecological movement is known as "freeganism" -- a portmanteau of the terms "free"...

Josephine Liang, 25, is part of a growing community of "freegans," people who eat recently discarded food to reduce waste. Liang used to shop regularly at the supermarket, then found a cheaper alternative by rummaging through bins, a decision that she says has lowered her weekly food bill to just £5 a week. Liang will wait until shops and cafes close, and then go through their bins to see what she can find. She is saving the money to go travelling.

Some students say they are swapping supermarket shelves for backstreet bins, so that they can save moneyIt’s midnight, I have a torch and I’m sifting through the bins behind my local Tesco in search of food. The idea of picking through discarded packets of cakes and cheese in a pair of marigolds may seem pretty disgusting. But for a small section of society, standing in bins at night – or freeganism, as it is more widely known – has become a way of life. Freegans avoid buying anything as much as possible in order to boycott the economic system and...

Have you ever thought about getting your food out of a trash can? Dumpster diving has become a hot new trend in America. In fact, dumpster divers even have a trendy new name -- "freegans" -- and as the economy crumbles their numbers are multiplying. Many freegans consider dumpster diving to be a great way to save money on groceries. Others do it because they want to live more simply. Freegans that are concerned about the environment view dumpster diving as a great way to "recycle" and other politically-minded freegans consider dumpster diving to be a form of political protest....

"I tell people I eat from the trash, and they think I’m crazy,” Alex Barnard ’09 said. Barnard follows the principles of freeganism. Inspired by the term veganism, this philosophy focuses on “alternative strategies for living based on limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources,” according to the website freegan.info. The trademark freegan practice is “dumpster-diving,” the salvaging of edible food past its display date that has been discarded by restaurants and stores. Barnard frequently gathers food thrown out both on and off campus. “People don’t really understand the scale at which grocery stores are wasting...

On February 27, the Oprah Winfrey show featured a special report by Lisa Ling. In her report Ling took a look at an ever increasing social movement here in the United States. The people in this movement have nicknamed themselves 'freegans'. Their lifestyle is a reaction against consumerism and capitalism in America. Instead of focusing on building up wealth and adding materials to their life, they avoid these possessions. In order to do this, they spend very little money on essential items like food and even less on non essential things. Lisa reports that one of the ways that they...

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- Peaches, plums, oranges, cantaloupe, butternut squash, red peppers, jicama, a mess of cucumbers. All fragrant, ripe, ready to eat. And all plucked out of Dumpsters by a squad of young friends who feed on the edible treasures they find in the garbage of North Jersey's restaurants and markets. They're known as freegans -- though Dumpster-divers might be more apt. They have the resources to buy their food, but they prefer harvesting it this way to make a political statement. "It feels good when you watch all those people paying for food," Jeff Wiesner, a 19-year-old from Tenafly,...

Patrick Lyons stands in the middle of a Dumpster, staring at a can of meat. "I don't know who eats this stuff," he says. He chucks the can aside and keeps on digging. His ball cap is slung low over his face; it connects to his long, thick, brown sideburns. He digs down and -- jackpot -- he's found what he's looking for. He holds three small potatoes and a yellow bell pepper up in the air. He's one step closer to a complete meal. He places his bounty in a cardboard box and keeps foraging. "One time a lady...