Freeganism - what a great concept, eh? You go through rubbish bins, take out what others (supermarkets, mostly, it seems) throw away and eat/use it. Et voila, good stuff for free!
No, actually. I have decided I have issues with freeganism.
One of myrelatives avid blog followers sent me this link, about a chappie who has written a book on freeganism. Apart from the fact that a book on freeganism that requires you to spend money on it is a bit of an anachronism (but very convenient, no doubt, for the author, a Mr Tristram Stuart), I don't like the ideology of the whole thing.
You see, freeganism relies on our western, consumerist lifestyle continuing. The only way freegans can continue to remove stuff from bins is if other people continue to put it there. So freegans are, in a way, perpetuating this lifestyle by spending their time rooting through rubbish bins rather than either growing their own food (and showing their friends and families how to do so too) or spending their money at local greengrocers, butchers and other businesses, who actually use up their produce, and only throw away food that genuinely is past its best before. Creating a demand for these kinds of businesses would allow them to lower their prices, encourage other small local businesses to open and gradually (and I appreciate we're not talking a ground breaking movement here) begin to draw a bit of the business away from the supermarkets.
I also know people who feel just that little bit better about their supermarket shop at, for example, Sainsburys rather than Tescos because Sainsburys doesn't lock up its bins, therefore the homeless and the freegans can take the waste, which makes the whole supermarket thing better, right?
In conclusion, I'm sorry Mr Stuart, but in the true spirit of freeganism, I won't be buying your book. I will, however, be recommending that you go and find some trees and pick some of the astonishing quantity of food that's growing wild, or buy a fishing rod and go catch something rather than fishing through the processed food chucked out by supermarkets.
No, actually. I have decided I have issues with freeganism.
One of my
You see, freeganism relies on our western, consumerist lifestyle continuing. The only way freegans can continue to remove stuff from bins is if other people continue to put it there. So freegans are, in a way, perpetuating this lifestyle by spending their time rooting through rubbish bins rather than either growing their own food (and showing their friends and families how to do so too) or spending their money at local greengrocers, butchers and other businesses, who actually use up their produce, and only throw away food that genuinely is past its best before. Creating a demand for these kinds of businesses would allow them to lower their prices, encourage other small local businesses to open and gradually (and I appreciate we're not talking a ground breaking movement here) begin to draw a bit of the business away from the supermarkets.
I also know people who feel just that little bit better about their supermarket shop at, for example, Sainsburys rather than Tescos because Sainsburys doesn't lock up its bins, therefore the homeless and the freegans can take the waste, which makes the whole supermarket thing better, right?
In conclusion, I'm sorry Mr Stuart, but in the true spirit of freeganism, I won't be buying your book. I will, however, be recommending that you go and find some trees and pick some of the astonishing quantity of food that's growing wild, or buy a fishing rod and go catch something rather than fishing through the processed food chucked out by supermarkets.
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