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Dumpster Diving

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littlelove:
I don't disagree with dumpster diving. I watched a show on Oprah about "freegan" living, which is essentially dumpster diving.

What I disagree with more is how our economy is so messed up that we throw out mass amounts of food, even though it is still edible. Bumps and bruises on fruits qualify them for the trash. How is this possible when third world countries are sitting only continents away, without any food to eat? People are so heartless when it comes to this matter. I say, all the power to the dumpster divers. Personally, I like to buy my fruit while it is ripe, a little on the bruised side. It tastes better that way, and you don't forget about the fruit, causing it to go bad in your fridge.

If I had more willpower, I would dumpster dive, but currently school is sucking any will I have right out of me.

Oh, and the ick-factor is fairly minimum, I'd say. Food found in dumpsters are usually wrapped anyways, and if they aren't, a good scrub or peeling will get rid of any gross stuff that might have landed on the skins of any fresh produce.

Lines:
Though I have gone dumpster diving for items (the ones behind dorms are fantastic for this, as well as the one behind the art building on campus, because people throw away all sorts of supplies that are pretty damn expensive), I don't think I'd be able to do it for food. Remembering how the trash at the restaurant I worked at looked like, I wouldn't be able to do it. (We'd keep wrong orders, though, and split them amongst the servers instead of throwing it away.) But if someone can stomach the idea of doing it, I don't see why not. I just know of a lot of places that have discounted food (read: practically free if not totally free) at closing time or certain days of the week, especially bakeries, so I don't really have the need or desire to go dumpster diving for food.

But if you stick a perfectly decent piece of furniture on the side of the road to throw away, I am taking it. I've gotten a really neat bookcase and a coffee table from this and another girl I know got an antique toilet (like, a wooden chair with a hole in it and a shelf under it for a chamber pot) that she painted on for an art project. Going to a uni in the middle of a wealthy suburb is nice for this kind of thing, because I don't think the people who throw stuff like that away know what Goodwill is or they just want us broke college kids to take it.

littlelove:
I have a chair, a bookshelf, and a slightly broken ikea desk from the side of the road :)
and my bed I bought for $40 matress, boxspring, and wheel things, at a secon hdand place, but it was still in the wrapping!
Most things I own were second hand, used, or free.

öde:
I saw a leather sofa on the curb a couple of weeks ago, I walked past later and it was gone. I wanted to take it home ):

Hat:
There is a general rule of thumb that if something has been on the curb for more than an hour, there is probably something drastically wrong with it.

I love kerbside collection month.

The best thing though is when you see someone put something out on the kerb and then its gone and then it turns out on the kerb out the front of someone else's house because they realise its too badly broken to be fixed or smells too much like cat piss or whatever and then sometimes that happens a few times and then it finds a home and you kind of wish you knew where the people who took it lived so you would know what kind of people in your neighbourhood don't care that their sofa smells like cat piss, just in case you want to buy any meth or something.

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