Freeganism is a total boycott of an economic system where the profit motive has eclipsed ethical considerations and where massively complex systems of productions ensure that all the products we buy will have detrimental impacts most of which we may never even consider. Thus, instead of avoiding the purchase of products from one bad company only to support another, Freegans avoid buying anything to the greatest degree they are able.
Freeganism is alive and happening in Aotearoa, but it is often tricky to find a local group (although you could always start your own!). Try searching the ‘Action Exchange‘ for opportunities to get involved in Freegan activities, or searching myspace, facebook, and yahoo groups.
Some of the things Freegans get up to are:
* Free Sharing - Sharing the wealth instead of adding to the waste. On email lists like Freecycle, websites like the free section of Craigslist, at day-long fairs like the “Really, Really Free Market and “Freemeet,” and in permanently established “Free Stores,” people donate items they don’t want and others find things they can use– all free of charge.
* Repair Workshops - Repair bikes and mend clothes and hold workshops to teach others to do the same. Fixed-up items can be found on the street, or simply collecting dust in the back corner of a closet.
* Wild Foraging - Identifying collecting and using wild-growing plant foods and medicinals, everywhere from the deep woods to a city park. In a society where we’ve been taught to think food comes out of a box, wild foraging reconnects us with the realization that our food comes from the Earth.
* Squatting - Finding abandoned, decrepit buildings and restoring them info homes and community centers for low-income families without benefit of a property deed. Squatting challenges the values of an economic system where homeless people freeze to death on the streets while landlords and municipal governments sit on boarded up buildings.
* Guerilla Gardening - Converting garbage-strewn abandoned lots into beautiful garden plots amidst the asphalt and concrete of urban neighborhoods. The gardens are refuges for urban wildlife and allow communities to grow their own food in neighborhoods where supermarkets understock healthy fruits and vegetables.
* Eco-friendly Transportation – Freegans see automobiles and the petroleum economy as a social and ecological disaster and promote more sustainable methods of travel. Bicycling is healthy, nonpolluting, and requires no fuel cost, so volunteer groups called “bike collectives” teach people to repair abandoned and broken bikes. Hitchhikers and freight train hoppers continue a time-honored vagabond tradition of traveling with minimal means in a car-obsessed nation with inadequate and prohibitively expensive passenger rail lines. Driving cars and running trains with extra space is an inefficient use of energy resources. By filling these vehicles with extra bodies, hitchers and hoppers increase their environmental efficiency, instead of putting another petroleum burning engine on the road. Freegans who find cars unavoidable avoid petroleum dependence by converting their diesel engines to run on used grease from restaurant flyers, turning a waste product into an ecologically friendly fuel. For traveling short distances, freegans are happy to simply walk.
* Avoiding Disposables- Freegans believe that the goods we used to should be designed to last and preserved for longevity. Freegans use rags over paper towels, hankerchiefs over paper tissues, and carry mugs rather than use disposable cups. In the process we save money and conserve natural resources.
* Avoiding Overconsumption and Working Less- Freegans resist manipulative advertisements that tell us we can find happiness and self-worth on retail store shelves. By buying less “stuff” and taking care of vital needs without paying money, freegans are able to work less or not at all. This is motivated not by “laziness”, but by a desire to devote their time to community service, activism, caring for family, appreciating nature, and enjoying life.
* Entertainment and Education- Freegans attend and share information about free events– parties, educational forums, free schools, nature hikes, walking tours, workshops that teach practical skills, concerts, discussion group and other activities where people can learn and have a great time without spending a cent.
* Food Not Bombs- Food Not Bombs groups in over 200 cities recover food that would otherwise go to waste and use it to prepare warm meals on the street to promote and ethic of sharing and feed hungry people, challenging a society that can always pay for war, but never seems able to ensure that all are fed.
Check out Freegan.info for more details
Tags: anti-capitalist, freegan
Good article,
In Aotearoa one of the easiest ways to live a freegan lifestyle is to skip or dumpster dive food from the rubbish bins of supermarkets, bakeries etc. It is amzing how much perfectly good food gets thrown out in this country- I haven’t brought groceries in ages. Night time is best and be careful of private property laws but you should be fine.
Squatting is illegal in NZ and not really practiced.. wouldn’t recommend that one unless you know the legalities around it and know the background of the house/building you enter.
See you in the skips!