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[ruyi]

Specifically, I'm referring to eating food that's been discarded but is still good. Apologies in advance if this has an ick factor for you.

My main question: is it wrong for me personally to do this?

Last night, I was waiting with my friend in front of a doughnut shop. (Why the hell is doughnut a typo, you guys.) We were waiting for fresh doughnuts because they are so warm and good! But the wait takes like two hours, so at one point I say aloud, "I'm hungry." Now, next to us is a fellow going through a trash can. He hears this and holds out a bag to me. "Want one?" There are two chocolate-glazed doughnuts inside.

After saying I'm really alright, he shouldn't give them to me if he wants them, and I'm waiting for fresh doughnuts besides, he still offers - so I accept one. After I take it, he leaves, and I mention to my friend that I've been thinking about dumpster diving. He argues that it would be wrong of me because I'd be doing so out of economic privilege. Homeless people do it because they have to, he says, and of course they would eat better food if they had the option. It is ethically wrong of me to do the same thing because of the fact that I have the choice not to. I'd be saving a few bucks, sure, but I'd just spend it on something more pointless than food. Ultimately, it would be kind of lame because it's similar to other ridiculous situations where privileged people feel guilty and try to make themselves suffer to compensate.

I argue that I just have a general tendency of wanting to avoid waste, especially food, and he believes it. I eat people's leftovers, I always finish my food, I try not to through things away, I avoid wasting energy, etc. I really feel that it isn't suffering for me to eat the occasional piece of food that's been discarded. Also, I wouldn't be doing it to be recognized. (Sorry, I suppose making this thread may partially negate that.)

What do you guys think? Is this being over-analyzed? Normally I suppose I'd just eat the food, but I'm not sure of what to say to the points my friend brought up.

[jhocking]

Seems pretty ick, although I used to be known eating crazy shit so I guess I'm not one to talk.

[Barmymoo]

I read an article about something similar recently. Some people were being sued by a supermarket for taking the food that was thrown away at the end of the day.

On the one hand, they were arguing that it was going to waste anyway. But on the other hand, if they had gone in and bought it then it wouldn't have been thrown away (and they could have afforded it). So by waiting until they could get it for free they were causing the supermarket to lose money on those products, meaning that the prices were put up in response. That meant that everything got more expensive and it wasn't very fair on the people who paid for their food.

So although I think that supermarkets throwing away unwanted food is a waste (why can't they give it to a soup kitchen, if it's still edible and not likely to make anyone ill?), I don't think that dumpster diving is morally right unless you have no other way to survive. And in an ideal world (well not totally ideal, because that would mean no poverty at all, but a better world anyway) there would be places where people with no money could go and get the food that the supermarkets couldn't sell.

Hope that was succinctly put, I feel like I've rambled a bit but you understand my meaning.

[RedLion]

CAPITALISM ROCKS!

[ruyi]

So although I think that supermarkets throwing away unwanted food is a waste (why can't they give it to a soup kitchen, if it's still edible and not likely to make anyone ill?), I don't think that dumpster diving is morally right unless you have no other way to survive. And in an ideal world (well not totally ideal, because that would mean no poverty at all, but a better world anyway) there would be places where people with no money could go and get the food that the supermarkets couldn't sell.

This doesn't account for the doughnut example. What do you say about the food people buy from restaurants and then throw away?

[Kai]

I used to work for a small little cafe that served your general variety of breakfast foodstuffs--eggs and sausage and pancakes and the like.

I am just going to say that I was astounded at how much food people waste. It's obscene.

Eat the doughnut.

[Barmymoo]

RedLion, although I do see the flaws in capitalism I also see the flaws in communism. And I'm not going to start trying to bring about a revolution, I've seen where that gets people.

It's a tricky issue I guess, waste in general but food in particular especially when we're having a bit of a crisis about it at the moment (all those hungry chinese, doncha know? Or so teh interwubs tells me). Yes, our economic system does result in a lot of poverty, but I can't think of a feasible way to solve that problem without a whole host of other problems coming along that would result in just as many people dying.

Eating the food other people has wasted instead of eating new food is probably similar to using the back of sheets of paper, instead of using a clean sheet (something I always try and get people to do, I hate it when people only use one side of the paper). But it would be better if people just didn't waste it in the first place. Obviously you can't do anything about that.

So I think what I'm trying to say is that I don't know. Can't call it. Wouldn't know what to do if I was in the same situation.

[RedLion]

I was teasing, friend-o. I actually agree with you completely.

[Barmymoo]

I thought you probably were but I'm having a serious-conversation evening :-p

[Elizzybeth]

I generally live by the principal that my body is not a trash can.  I try to buy and prepare only amounts of food that I am going to eat, and I save and eat leftovers whenever possible, but the fact is that nobody is going to be well served by me eating beyond the point at which I am full.  In the first world, people are not going hungry because there is a food shortage.  As Barmymoo points out, supermarkets and restaurants throw away huge amounts of food.  Eating the food that they throw out versus eating the food they serve within the restaurant is not going to decrease the ultimate amount of waste (same thing goes for smaller amounts of food thrown out by individual people).

If it's simply a matter of guilt for your privilege, then it does sound pretty silly to me.  You risk all kinds of infectious diseases for the sake of a couple of bucks and an inexplicably cleaner conscience (though you could, theoretically, give that money to a homeless shelter or something).

On the other hand, if it's a matter of you being hungry, the food being there, and you not minding eating something that's come out of a trash can, then go for it, by all means.  Otherwise it probably will simply go to waste.  I can see how someone could argue that it's bad for the economy, but only slightly, and certainly no more so than, say, growing your own fruits and vegetables at home for private consumption; I don't see how someone could reasonably argue that it's immoral.

[a pack of wolves]

You're not risking infectious diseases by eating food out of a bin, well not unless you can't tell fresh food from something that's gone off at least. I've done it a lot in the past and I plan to do it far more in the future. I've never thought of it as guiltily making myself suffer to compensate, to me it's a way of getting free stuff that's going to waste otherwise and it's usually a lot of fun too. It's amazing what you find in bins and skips, a lot of the people I know can't pass a skip without having a good rummage. I know people who've found laptops, bicycles, fridges... you can get all kinds of things. My personal favourite find was a copy of Spike Milligan's 'The Bed Sitting Room'. As for the economic argument, personally I couldn't care less about the profits of supermarkets and I see no reason why I should give them my money if I can just take the food for free.

Eat the doughnuts.

[Elizzybeth]

I was referring to all the saliva-transmitted diseases, given that a lot of dumpster food is half-nibbled at.  Of course, you also risk such diseases any time you shake hands with someone who bites their nails, or kiss someone, or go around licking your neighbors' doorknobs.

[Darkbluerabbit]

Dumpster diving can be done for survival, or it can be done for social reasons.  There's actually a whole "Freegan" movement that advocates removing oneself from the economy as much as possible.  Some of the ideas are pretty cool, like the punks who came up with "Food, not Bombs," a group that asks grocery stores for unwanted food, which they prepare and serve to people who might go hungry. 

There's a lot more information about it at Freegan.info. 

A lot of it is basically voluntary hobodom.  They advocate squatting, dumpster diving, and hitchhiking. 

[SeanBateman]

Freegans are idiots. Ruyi is not an idiot.

Ruyi I eat a lot of free food. I used to go into restraunts(fuck why can I never spell that fucking word) and just eat food that people had left behind after their meals. My basic principle is that anything that doesn't have a bite out of it is fair game, although I made exceptions for super delicious stuff and ate them from the other side.

I got thrown out of a lot of eateries because I was "gross."

You should really just go ahead and eat whatever you feel like, I guess? I think that dumpster diving is a pretty dumb thing to do, just because it is trashy and you can be smarter about it. There is a health food store in the town I live in now that gives away all of their non-saleable goods every saturday! If you go, you can just meet with them and get a whole mess of food and you don't have to go into a dumpster. A lot of bakeries and other places will also just give you food if you go in towards closing and ask them if they have anything they're going to throw away that they wouldn't mind giving you.

Dumpster diving proper is really just for freegans and others who want to feel self-righteous about how they eat their food. But then again, I guess you do go to Berkeley.

[a pack of wolves]

You don't have an issue with eating free food but you think freegans are idiots... go on then, I'm intrigued, explain to me why I'm thick just because I'll eat a bagel from a skip.

A lot of it is basically voluntary hobodom.  They advocate squatting, dumpster diving, and hitchhiking. 

There's a big difference between squatting and being a hobo. A lot of the squats I know are pretty nice and the people in them aim to stay as long as they can, they don't to be moved along and be itinerant although unfortunately this is usually what happens (not just for them but for the community, my Dad's very concerned because they've evicted the squatters next door to him which leaves the building empty).

[bicostp]

I'm sorry but eating out of the trash is probably the most idiotic thing you could do to yourself. You'd have to be really desperate for that to be a viable option (that is, you've been banned for life from the soup kitchens). Remember, it doesn't have to be moldy and soaked in dumpster juice to carry e.coli or other diseases. (And yes that is a definite possibility; especially if they previously threw any undercooked or raw red meat in there.

I just buy and eat my own food like every other sensible person out there who has the opportunity. When I cook stuff at home, I make up as much as I need, or do a big batch and freeze the surplus for later. (It's less wasteful and cheaper in the long run.) Yay capitalism.

Now, dumpster diving for computer parts... Well that's different. You can always powerwash cases and spray things with Lysol, and they're usually not thrown in with kitchen waste and table scraps because they're sent to a processing center for recycling. I've pulled a bunch of nice stuff from the trash pile at work: DVD burners, memory, hard drives, entire laptops (or the parts necessary to re-assemble them), routers, switches, desktops, even a couple PDAs and an LCD or two. Everything works; I guess some of it came from peoples' desks getting emptied after they got fired. (Well, it's not exactly dumpster diving, but "raiding the bins marked "TRASH" in the loading dock.)

[Cartilage Head]

 I agree with Kieffer. When I was a dishwasher at a restraunt that charged even the employees, I usually gathered the food that hadn't been bitten into, or cut off the bitten parts of sandwiches and stuff, and ate it as my lunch. I wouldn't go poking through a garbage can or a dumpster unless I had just seen something good thrown away really recently.
 
 I have also gone into mexican restraunts that served those really delicious tortilla chips and dip, scooped them into a bag or box, and left with my large snack.

[ThePQ4]

Hmmm...
I was reading a a book a long time ago that had a section in it on dumpster diving, and they didn't reccomend taking food out of Restaurant bins... Now, if you can find decent produce or canned items that have been discarded, go for it, but otherwise, I think you're just risking getting sick.

If you're really looking for a deal, talk to people at the supermarket. Chances are you can get deals on "nick and dent" items or near-date produce and bakery items.

[Switchblade]

I certainly wouldn't dumpster-dive for food unless it was in tins or something, but we've scavenged other stuff before, mostly from the skips on the university campus. For example, the tyre iron in my car, the desk chair I was using last year, one of my XBox 360 controllers, a working copy of Knights of the Old Republic II for PC, an electric screwdriver, a cricket bat and an unopened twelve-pack of Duracell batteries.

The university tends to throw a lot of stuff out at the start of the semester when the budget comes through. Get there before it rains and you can pick up some surprising stuff.

[muteKi]

I'm not a dumpster diver or anything, especially for food, since it's hard to assure the quality when temperature conditions aren't optimal and it's stuck with a bunch of older stuff that did go bad. I'd rather be healthy than have a few more bucks.

[Aztex]

There was a girl at uni who threw out an uneaten plate of weges. like she only ate 4 and then threw it in the bin... I was gonna ask her for them but yeah...

[jodizzle]

So although I think that supermarkets throwing away unwanted food is a waste (why can't they give it to a soup kitchen, if it's still edible and not likely to make anyone ill?), I don't think that dumpster diving is morally right unless you have no other way to survive. And in an ideal world (well not totally ideal, because that would mean no poverty at all, but a better world anyway) there would be places where people with no money could go and get the food that the supermarkets couldn't sell.

Interestingly, supermarkets are NOT ALLOWED to give away food that has been damaged or is otherwise fine but doesnt have the ingredients/nutritional information on it.  I work in a grocery store and the staff always would take hom food with no lables etc.  But we have recently been told that we are not allowed to.  It is against some kind of crazy law and we HAVE TO throw it away. HAVE TO.  I flinch everytime I see good food being thrown away and we all believe it is a horrible waste.  especially since we were the ones getting free food out of the bargains.  there a a bajillion security cameras in our store linked directly to our head office which makes it difficult (but not impossible) to get around.

But that is why they dont just give the food away.  Technically, they are just not allowed.

[Slick]

Dumpster diving is not by nature stupid, I think. Tim Horton's, a chain coffee & doughtnut shop up here, throws away all of their doughnuts at midnight, to be able to maintain their 'made fresh daily' claim. Having worked at Tim Horton's, I totally think it is fine to take those surplus doughnuts at quarter past midnight, just check the bag first so that you know they haven't also dumped chicken salad in there as well (but that is unusual).
Just as a rule of thumb, if there's food in a bag, and there's nothing else bad in the bag, it is safe. If you are adventurous, you can even wash of sketchy produce, but I avoid anything suspect, myself.

Roo, with regards to the person who thinks it is immoral to eat dumpster food as it deprives hobos, I would say buy a hobo a doughnut and offer that person a dumpster doughnut. If they still refuse to eat it, then I would assume they are just afraid of dumpster food and are spinning an argument to defend their position.

Food not bombs is pretty sweet as well, I have helped cook for them once and it is super fun. Where I am, we make two batches of soup with what we've got (both vegan) which we just give away to anyone who wants some. The philosophy, as I've come to understand it, is that instead of building bombs, we should be making soup and building community. You meet cool people when you're in the kitchen, and you meet cool people giving food away on the streets. And it is not just for the homeless, everyone can eat if they want food.

I dislike the notion that taking from a store's dumpster is robbing them of the sale, though. If they are throwing it out, then I have no problems with taking it. To hell with them wasting it out of spite. If they want to offer it at a discount, I will probably buy it. If they want to throw it out, I may well take it.


P.S. Regarding video cameras, my major coup when I left Tim Horton's was sneaking out like three boxes of instant cappuccino, hot apple cider, and hot chocolate with the trash. I later swapped some with my friend for subway southwest sauce. I was a good, reliable, experienced worker who had trained people I was making like ten cents an hour more than. Fuck those guys.

[sallyz3smath]

I was recently asked to read an essay excerpt from a book about a man who lived on the street for a few years and his experiences with Dumpster Diving. As a college student ( who is also a bit of an eco nut) I dumpster dive when ever I can. I feel the waste we as a consumer society is terrible. Alot of the food thrown away at supermarkets is just fine for eating and would be much more appropriately donated to shelters or programs for the under priviledged, but we know exactly how well having these ideas work. It's like communism good on paper, hard to inpliment.
 So here is the name of the essay I read, the book iself is on it's way to me from the interwebs :
Lars Eighner : On Dumpster Diving is the essay,
Lars Eighner - Travels with Lizbeth: Three Years on the Road and on the Streets.

[ruyi]

Roo, with regards to the person who thinks it is immoral to eat dumpster food as it deprives hobos, I would say buy a hobo a doughnut and offer that person a dumpster doughnut. If they still refuse to eat it, then I would assume they are just afraid of dumpster food and are spinning an argument to defend their position.

I specifically asked him about this, and this isn't what he meant. I'm not depriving hobos, because there's definitely not a shortage of food to be found. He just meant it was unethical because of the fact that I have a choice and they don't.

Anyways, we agreed that for the specific doughnut situation, it was right to accept it. He was being kind and I didn't think what he had to offer was dirty. The question is mainly about dumpster diving on my own.

Given my location (ie college), a lot of the food discarded away is pretty clean and I don't really have to rummage through the trash to get to it. Oftentimes bins are just overflowing and people will leave food on tables and benches. It is indeed pretty ridiculous.

[Switchblade]

If you're really looking for a deal, talk to people at the supermarket. Chances are you can get deals on "nick and dent" items or near-date produce and bakery items.

Actually, a lot of supermarkets do that regardless.  ASDA and Tesco both do "damaged produce" shelves - anything with damaged packaging gets sold at a discount off those shelves. In the build-up to Easter, it's the perfect source of chocolate - all of the damaged easter eggs go on that shelf.

also good for esoteric things like porridge mix, breakfast cereal, hair gel and hand soap.

[a pack of wolves]

I'm sorry but eating out of the trash is probably the most idiotic thing you could do to yourself. You'd have to be really desperate for that to be a viable option (that is, you've been banned for life from the soup kitchens). Remember, it doesn't have to be moldy and soaked in dumpster juice to carry e.coli or other diseases. (And yes that is a definite possibility; especially if they previously threw any undercooked or raw red meat in there.

Untrue. The food you'll find in the bins of large food shops will be tied up in bags, so you won't find raw meat rubbing up against apples. I don't know a single person who's gotten ill from eating food from bins and I know a very large number of people who've been eating freegan on a regular basis, in many cases for well over ten years. You're much more likely to get sick from eating a home cooked meal by a meat eater who doesn't pay proper attention to raw meat than you are eating some cream doughnuts or a box of mushrooms that have been thrown away. I've fed large numbers of people using food like that before with Food Not Bombs and the like and there have never been any problems.

[Jimmy the Squid]

I used to work at a liquor store that was attached to a supermarket owned by the same corporation, we shared their loading bay and also their trash compactor. When they threw things into the dumpster in the trash room they just threw it all in, vegetables, meat, dairy, everything. There were some things in bags but they were usually from the bins in the breakroom or from the bins in the offices. Some of the stuff they threw out was not yet out of date and some of it was just "faulty" but it was all in together and even if I didn't find dumpster diving to be really fucking disgusting (keep in mind I don't like getting dirty and I wash my hands almost compulsively if I ever touch anything I find gross), I still wouldn't have touched anything in that particular dumpster.

Besides from what I heard the manager say when he was yelling at someone who forgot to lock the dumpster at night if the food is deemed "unfit for sale" and someone eats it and gets sick, even if it is still within date then they can sue the supermarket for negligance or something, though I'm not sure how true that is.

[cupcakeonastick]

I've never had the urge to dumpster dive, but as a waitress I would often be tempted to take food from the plates I was busing from the abandoned tables. People leave copious amounts of food on their plates when they eat out (due to the huge portions) and many of them don't bother with doggy bags. It used to really bother me and if there hadn't been the risk of getting fired for such behavior, I would have put it in a container and eaten the leftovers myself.


But then, I've never been very scared of risking uber germs in situations like that. The general public doesn't usually walk around with terrifying diseases jumping from their bodies/fingers/mouth onto their plates.

But dumpsters .. who knows what the heck is in there or has been in there.

[KvP]

Besides from what I heard the manager say when he was yelling at someone who forgot to lock the dumpster at night if the food is deemed "unfit for sale" and someone eats it and gets sick, even if it is still within date then they can sue the supermarket for negligance or something, though I'm not sure how true that is.

I'd assume there's some kernel of truth to that. At least here, that's why we can't just take just-expired food and hand it out to the homeless. But here there is an organization that you can donate your expired-but-not-eaten food to and they'll give it to poor families, who are informed of all the risks and agree not to pursue action if something goes wrong, which rarely happens. A lot of things are still good past their printed expiration date.

I personally can't stand to dumpster dive, but I'm also one of those people who compulsively washes their hands after doing anything remotely dirty. I'd probably vomit if I ate something I knew came from the trash.

[Jimmy the Squid]

Alex, sterile-five!

[KvP]

I don't know, I just got over a 2-week illness.

[Ozymandias]

I've eaten from the trash before.

Tasty stuff.

I wouldn't eat from a dumpster, though.

That is my contribution.

[Chrasstor]

I say whatever floats your boat, aye?

I wouldn't eat from a dumpster unless it was something that was freshly thrown out (I witnessed it) and it wasn't even touched. It also shouldn't have any dumpster dirt or other such things on it. Probably in a wrapper.


So, I'd 'Dumpster Dive' if the dumped product was:
1)Freshly Discarded(Eye witness)
2)Has some kind of barrier between it and other trash
3)The waster wasn't semi-finished.


I don't really care about this kind of thing in terms of how classy it looks, but it just seems kind of pseudo-avant garde to prefer trashfood over normal food.

"Oh hey, look how quirky and awesome I am! I eat from dumpsters!"

As long as that's not why you eat from dumpsters, it's cool.

[cupcakeonastick]

I don't think I've even eaten something out of my own trash.

I've dropped stuff on the floor and eaten it plenty of times, though.

[Jimmy the Squid]

I should mention i'm ok with the dumpster diving at the back of electronic stores/repair shops. They make sense.

[öde]

I'd eat food that had been thrown out if it was in it's sealed container. It's strange, most of the time I'm not too worried about germs but I find bins revolting.

[Barmymoo]

I have a friend who dumpster-dives at DVD stores.

Why the hell would a DVD store throw away a perfectly usable DVD or computer game? It doesn't make sense to me.

[Luke C]

So although I think that supermarkets throwing away unwanted food is a waste (why can't they give it to a soup kitchen, if it's still edible and not likely to make anyone ill?), I don't think that dumpster diving is morally right unless you have no other way to survive. And in an ideal world (well not totally ideal, because that would mean no poverty at all, but a better world anyway) there would be places where people with no money could go and get the food that the supermarkets couldn't sell.

Interestingly, supermarkets are NOT ALLOWED to give away food that has been damaged or is otherwise fine but doesnt have the ingredients/nutritional information on it.  I work in a grocery store and the staff always would take hom food with no lables etc.  But we have recently been told that we are not allowed to.  It is against some kind of crazy law and we HAVE TO throw it away. HAVE TO.  I flinch everytime I see good food being thrown away and we all believe it is a horrible waste.  especially since we were the ones getting free food out of the bargains.  there a a bajillion security cameras in our store linked directly to our head office which makes it difficult (but not impossible) to get around.
But that is why they dont just give the food away.  Technically, they are just not allowed.

Im not sure where you are at but IIRC the law in the UK is a bit sketchy with this type of thing.

In my mind though if supermarkets or sandwich stores or whatever decide not to sell food that dosnt meet their high standards then thats ok, they have a reputation to keep up. What they should do/be allowed to do is either give it to the staff, lets face it your average supermarket employee isn't going to be on a huge wage, or if not give it to the homeless. Is a homeless dude gonna complain because the bread he is given for free is a little bit stale?

A bit more to the point, freeganism is the type of theory which kind of pisses me off, if everybody did it then nobody could!

[a pack of wolves]

But if everybody suddenly did it then capitalism would be royally fucked, which in my experience of people who call themselves freegan would be the cause of many high fives.

[Switchblade]

A bit more to the point, freeganism is the type of theory which kind of pisses me off, if everybody did it then nobody could!

Agreed. It's really just parasitic behaviour with a thin veneer of philosophical "justification" thrown in to try and make it look pretty.

[a pack of wolves]

It doesn't need a justification to look pretty, getting things for free is always a good thing. Technically it is parasitic, but so what?

[Unosuke]

When I was in high school, they would let us eat lunch anywhere on campus, and me and my friends had out little corner right by a trash can, and every day, they would come by and put in fresh bags right before lunch, and every day, this one kid would come by and throw away items from his lunch that he didn't want (they were still wrapped up and good and everything) and so if we saw something we liked, we'd just reach in and grab it. so the joke was that we were eating out of the trash.

[Cartilage Head]

 By the way Roo I would dig in rubbish for a romantic hobo-meal with you any day.

[Misereatur]

I'm trying to find a good article I read about dumpster diving in Adbusters magazine.

What I want to say is:

Eat the doughnut.

[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.