Freeganism (wiki)
Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2017 7:45 pm
_________ Advice Page __________
Introduction [1]
Freeganism is a practice and ideology of limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources, particularly through recovering wasted goods like food.[1] The word "freegan" is a portmanteau of "free" and "vegan".[2] While vegans might avoid buying animal products as an act of protest against animal exploitation, freegans—at least in theory—avoid buying anything as an act of protest against the food system in general. Freeganism is often presented as synonymous with "dumpster diving" for discarded food, although freegans are distinguished by their association with an anti-consumerist and anti-capitalist ideology and their engagement in a wider range of alternative living strategies, such as voluntary unemployment, squatting abandoned buildings, and "guerilla gardening" in unoccupied city parks.[3]
Table of Contents
1 Facts & Information
1.1 History of the term and movement
1.1.1 Freegan News and Events
1.2 How to
1.3 Stigma
1.4 Critique
2 Activism
2.1 Effective Activism
2.2 Virtue Activism
2.3 Policy
2.3.1 Impacts
3 Alternative Perspectives
_____________________________
Facts & Information
History of the term and movement [2]
Freegans' goal of reduced participation in capitalism and tactics of recovering wasted goods shares elements with the Diggers, an anarchist street theater group based in Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco in the 1960s that organized free housing and clinics and gave away rescued food.[4] The word "freegan" itself was allegedly invented in 1994 by Keith McHenry, the co-founder of Food Not Bombs—an anarchist group that distributes free vegetarian meals as a protest against militarism and as a way of providing "solidarity not charity"—to refer to vegans who eat animal products if they find them in a dumpster.[1] McHenry's account is consistent with other published accounts of freeganism that show the word as beginning to be used in the mid-1990s by participants in the antiglobalization and radical environmental movements.[5]
The pamphlet "Why Freegan?"—written by former Against Me! drummer Warren Oakes in Gainesville, Florida in 1999[6]—defines freeganism as "an anti-consumeristic ethic about eating" and goes on to describe practices including dumpster diving, plate scraping, wild foraging, gardening, theft, employee scams, and barter as alternatives to paying for food.[7] The pamphlet also expanded the activities associated with "freeganism" with a long section on non-alimentary practices, including conserving water, pre-cycling, reusing goods, and using solar energy. More than just a set of behaviors, though, the pamphlet presents freeganism as having an overarching political goal: an "ultimate boycott" of "all the corporations, all the stores, all the pesticides, all the land and resources wasted, the capitalist system, the all-oppressive dollar, the wage slavery, the whole burrito" in favor of "liv[ing] a full satisfying life...while treading lightly on the earth." The first organized group of self-described "freegans" formed in 2003 as an offshoot of the Wetlands Preserve nightclub and associated Activism Center in New York City. According to the group freegan.info, "After years of trying to boycott products from unethical corporations responsible for human rights violations, environmental destruction, and animal abuse, many of us found that no matter what we bought we ended up supporting something deplorable. We came to realize that the problem isn’t just a few bad corporations but the entire system itself."[8] From 2005, freegan.info organized regular events including sewing and bicycle workshops, wild food foraging expeditions, and "trash tours"—public dumpster dives open to the public and to media.[9]
Other self-described freegan groups have, at one time or another, existed in United Kingdom, Sweden, Norway, Austria, France, Canada, Greece, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, South Korea, Japan, and Brazil, as well as a half-dozen U.S. cities. The majority of these groups are now inactive, however, and many people and organizations engaged in freegan activities do not use the label.
Freegan News and Events [3][edit]
How to[edit]
Trashwiki [4] is the go to that every freegan uses for maps and information on big cities when they don't know their way around or have someone to show them. Helplful 'last checked' dates also.
Stigma [5] [edit]
research on freegans finds that individuals come from middle-class and upper-class backgrounds and have high levels of education (even if their present lifestyles make them low-income).
I am extremely embarrassed for people to see me diving, because I can tell that I’m not just me, I’m also a representation of black people in general...I got harassed by security several times while diving on my own campus, until my white friends pop their heads out of the dumpsters.
Critique
Drop out culture.
_________________________
Activism
Effective Activism
Virtue Activism
Public groups have been contacted by journalists and celebrity campaigners to come along and collect footage, we can do better to document ourselves, seek above board access to food waste, network and make companies aware of how to better stock and shelf their products to reduce waist.
Until better laws can be enacted dumpster diving can be a vital toolkit in cheaply running new projects, supporting the homeless and feeding domestic animals which are obligate carnivores.
Policy
Stop Wasting Food [5] Hugh's Fish Fight [6] Hugh's War on Waste [7]
Impacts [8][edit]
Media coverage of freeganism in the United States peaked around the financial crisis in 2007-2009 and dropped off subsequently. More recently, freeganism has been discussed in the context of increasing public interest in food waste. Tristram Stuart, a prominent food waste campaigner and founder of the organization "Feedback" claims that media attention to freeganism was crucial in attracting attention to the problem.[1] Other analyses of the origins of contemporary public policy initiatives around food waste have also concluded that freeganism contributed to new initiatives, like the French law on food waste or the U.S. food waste reduction challenge.[42][43]
__________________________
Alternative Perspectives
________________________
_________ Talk Page ___________
How it relates to veganism, how pragmatic it can be when done right, how the end goal should be bringing awareness to end food waste, but also how it can be a vital toolkit in cheaply running new projects, supporting the homeless and domestic animals which are obligate carnivores.
Wiki quoting
Hard to do much better than the wiki definition, history and policy impact. And if we could wouldn't we want to change the Wikipedia definition also? In such a circumstance is it ok to copy verbatim or should we keep in quote and reference form?
Not sure if this is how other small mediawiki operations do it, but seems we can copy verbatim without quote-marking:[1]
As of July 15, 2009 Wikipedia has moved to a dual-licensing system that supersedes the previous GFDL only licensing. In short, this means that text licensed under the GFDL only can no longer be imported to Wikipedia, retroactive to 1 November 2008. Additionally, Wikipedia text might or might not now be exportable under the GFDL depending on whether or not any content was added and not removed since July 15 2009. See Wikipedia:Licensing update for further information.
Verbatim copying under the GFDL is one of the ways to reuse Wikipedia articles and other material. You may only use this approach for pages that do not incorporate text that is exclusively available under CC-BY-SA or a CC-BY-SA-compatible license. See Re-use of text under the GNU Free Documentation License.
For the purposes of this discussion, Wikipedia is considered to be a Collection of Documents. (An alternative interpretation could be that Wikipedia is a single Document, which invalidates the discussion on this page.)
To Draw from
Forum Threads
Hyperlinks [2]
How Much Food Can You Find In A Dumpster? (Vegan Gains)
Vegan makes profit from roadkill
Is it okay to eat meat that you did not buy?
Part Vegan Part Freegan? The concept of use?
Eggs and Veganism
Backyard rescue hens
Veganism and Dumpster Diving
FREEGAN VEGAN BEEGAN’S!?
External links
Wikipedia [3]
Very thorough, we can probably reference to their history overview. --NonZeroSum (talk) 06:29, 15 July 2017 (CEST)
Trashwiki [4]
This site is the go to that every freegan uses for maps and information on big cities when they don't know their way around or have someone to show them. Helplful 'last checked' dates also. Interesting recorded Freegan News and Events also.[5]
Introduction [1]
Freeganism is a practice and ideology of limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources, particularly through recovering wasted goods like food.[1] The word "freegan" is a portmanteau of "free" and "vegan".[2] While vegans might avoid buying animal products as an act of protest against animal exploitation, freegans—at least in theory—avoid buying anything as an act of protest against the food system in general. Freeganism is often presented as synonymous with "dumpster diving" for discarded food, although freegans are distinguished by their association with an anti-consumerist and anti-capitalist ideology and their engagement in a wider range of alternative living strategies, such as voluntary unemployment, squatting abandoned buildings, and "guerilla gardening" in unoccupied city parks.[3]
Table of Contents
1 Facts & Information
1.1 History of the term and movement
1.1.1 Freegan News and Events
1.2 How to
1.3 Stigma
1.4 Critique
2 Activism
2.1 Effective Activism
2.2 Virtue Activism
2.3 Policy
2.3.1 Impacts
3 Alternative Perspectives
_____________________________
Facts & Information
History of the term and movement [2]
Freegans' goal of reduced participation in capitalism and tactics of recovering wasted goods shares elements with the Diggers, an anarchist street theater group based in Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco in the 1960s that organized free housing and clinics and gave away rescued food.[4] The word "freegan" itself was allegedly invented in 1994 by Keith McHenry, the co-founder of Food Not Bombs—an anarchist group that distributes free vegetarian meals as a protest against militarism and as a way of providing "solidarity not charity"—to refer to vegans who eat animal products if they find them in a dumpster.[1] McHenry's account is consistent with other published accounts of freeganism that show the word as beginning to be used in the mid-1990s by participants in the antiglobalization and radical environmental movements.[5]
The pamphlet "Why Freegan?"—written by former Against Me! drummer Warren Oakes in Gainesville, Florida in 1999[6]—defines freeganism as "an anti-consumeristic ethic about eating" and goes on to describe practices including dumpster diving, plate scraping, wild foraging, gardening, theft, employee scams, and barter as alternatives to paying for food.[7] The pamphlet also expanded the activities associated with "freeganism" with a long section on non-alimentary practices, including conserving water, pre-cycling, reusing goods, and using solar energy. More than just a set of behaviors, though, the pamphlet presents freeganism as having an overarching political goal: an "ultimate boycott" of "all the corporations, all the stores, all the pesticides, all the land and resources wasted, the capitalist system, the all-oppressive dollar, the wage slavery, the whole burrito" in favor of "liv[ing] a full satisfying life...while treading lightly on the earth." The first organized group of self-described "freegans" formed in 2003 as an offshoot of the Wetlands Preserve nightclub and associated Activism Center in New York City. According to the group freegan.info, "After years of trying to boycott products from unethical corporations responsible for human rights violations, environmental destruction, and animal abuse, many of us found that no matter what we bought we ended up supporting something deplorable. We came to realize that the problem isn’t just a few bad corporations but the entire system itself."[8] From 2005, freegan.info organized regular events including sewing and bicycle workshops, wild food foraging expeditions, and "trash tours"—public dumpster dives open to the public and to media.[9]
Other self-described freegan groups have, at one time or another, existed in United Kingdom, Sweden, Norway, Austria, France, Canada, Greece, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, South Korea, Japan, and Brazil, as well as a half-dozen U.S. cities. The majority of these groups are now inactive, however, and many people and organizations engaged in freegan activities do not use the label.
Freegan News and Events [3][edit]
How to[edit]
Trashwiki [4] is the go to that every freegan uses for maps and information on big cities when they don't know their way around or have someone to show them. Helplful 'last checked' dates also.
Stigma [5] [edit]
research on freegans finds that individuals come from middle-class and upper-class backgrounds and have high levels of education (even if their present lifestyles make them low-income).
I am extremely embarrassed for people to see me diving, because I can tell that I’m not just me, I’m also a representation of black people in general...I got harassed by security several times while diving on my own campus, until my white friends pop their heads out of the dumpsters.
Critique
Drop out culture.
_________________________
Activism
Effective Activism
Virtue Activism
Public groups have been contacted by journalists and celebrity campaigners to come along and collect footage, we can do better to document ourselves, seek above board access to food waste, network and make companies aware of how to better stock and shelf their products to reduce waist.
Until better laws can be enacted dumpster diving can be a vital toolkit in cheaply running new projects, supporting the homeless and feeding domestic animals which are obligate carnivores.
Policy
Stop Wasting Food [5] Hugh's Fish Fight [6] Hugh's War on Waste [7]
Impacts [8][edit]
Media coverage of freeganism in the United States peaked around the financial crisis in 2007-2009 and dropped off subsequently. More recently, freeganism has been discussed in the context of increasing public interest in food waste. Tristram Stuart, a prominent food waste campaigner and founder of the organization "Feedback" claims that media attention to freeganism was crucial in attracting attention to the problem.[1] Other analyses of the origins of contemporary public policy initiatives around food waste have also concluded that freeganism contributed to new initiatives, like the French law on food waste or the U.S. food waste reduction challenge.[42][43]
__________________________
Alternative Perspectives
________________________
_________ Talk Page ___________
How it relates to veganism, how pragmatic it can be when done right, how the end goal should be bringing awareness to end food waste, but also how it can be a vital toolkit in cheaply running new projects, supporting the homeless and domestic animals which are obligate carnivores.
Wiki quoting
Hard to do much better than the wiki definition, history and policy impact. And if we could wouldn't we want to change the Wikipedia definition also? In such a circumstance is it ok to copy verbatim or should we keep in quote and reference form?
Not sure if this is how other small mediawiki operations do it, but seems we can copy verbatim without quote-marking:[1]
As of July 15, 2009 Wikipedia has moved to a dual-licensing system that supersedes the previous GFDL only licensing. In short, this means that text licensed under the GFDL only can no longer be imported to Wikipedia, retroactive to 1 November 2008. Additionally, Wikipedia text might or might not now be exportable under the GFDL depending on whether or not any content was added and not removed since July 15 2009. See Wikipedia:Licensing update for further information.
Verbatim copying under the GFDL is one of the ways to reuse Wikipedia articles and other material. You may only use this approach for pages that do not incorporate text that is exclusively available under CC-BY-SA or a CC-BY-SA-compatible license. See Re-use of text under the GNU Free Documentation License.
For the purposes of this discussion, Wikipedia is considered to be a Collection of Documents. (An alternative interpretation could be that Wikipedia is a single Document, which invalidates the discussion on this page.)
To Draw from
Forum Threads
Hyperlinks [2]
How Much Food Can You Find In A Dumpster? (Vegan Gains)
Vegan makes profit from roadkill
Is it okay to eat meat that you did not buy?
Part Vegan Part Freegan? The concept of use?
Eggs and Veganism
Backyard rescue hens
Veganism and Dumpster Diving
FREEGAN VEGAN BEEGAN’S!?
External links
Wikipedia [3]
Very thorough, we can probably reference to their history overview. --NonZeroSum (talk) 06:29, 15 July 2017 (CEST)
Trashwiki [4]
This site is the go to that every freegan uses for maps and information on big cities when they don't know their way around or have someone to show them. Helplful 'last checked' dates also. Interesting recorded Freegan News and Events also.[5]