WHY FREEGAN???

An interview with a New York Freegan as an introduction to the Freegan Movement.

>Who started Freegan? When was the idea conceived?

Freeganism is a movement that has its roots in a myriad of practices that have been around in, in some cases, for thousands of years.

Buddhist and Jain monks have traditionally only eaten foods not prepared especially for them (essentially, leftovers) to avoid the bad karma involved in the production of these foods (e.g. harm to wildlife from farming practices).

For over a century, hobos have criss-crossed the United States, riding freight trains as part of a cooperative of culture of people who share information, resources, and lore, living as travellers in the effort to escape the monotony of conventional corporate wage slavery. Hobos have a long tradition of political activism, and are well known for organizing workers in the Industrial Workers of the World (The Wobblies), a radical, worker-run industrial union alternative to bloated, bureaucrat-centered liberal unions.

For decades, squatters have recovered and restored empty, wasted buildings, creating housing for low income families and community centers for impoverished neighborhoods. Similarly, community "guerilla" gardeners have recovered abandoned lots and turned them into beautiful green spaces that create a destination and educational volunteer opportunity for children in low income communities, reconnect people with nature and growing cycles, bring people to understand where out food comes from in a world where so many rarely think about food having a history before in reaches the store shelf, create fresh air in asthma-blighted communities, provide a free source of food, and overall give people hope and inspiration in communities plagued with poverty, violence, drug addition, and hunger.

Urban foraging, the recovery of discarded goods, is also not a new practice. Abbie Hoffman discusses it in his classic "Steal This Book" (http://www.tenant.net/Community/steal/steal.html#2.02.0) and some in our group remember "dumpster diving" in the 1960s. Actually, Hoffman's book, particularly the first section, is very close in spirit to freeganism, though it most likely predates the advent of the term.

The term freeganism goes back to at least the 1990s and perhaps even earlier. As far as I can tell, no one is quite sure who, where, and when it was coined.

One of the earliest writings to use the term freegan is the light-hearted and irreverent "Why Freegan" http://freegan.info/?page=WhyFreegan.

>What’s the basic philosophy of Freeganism?

In a system based on profit, exploitation of animals, the earth, and human beings are simply everyday costs of doing business for the corporations we work for and buy from. Freegans are people who wish to escape the exploitation of ourselves and others intrinsic to our participation in a profit-driven economy, people who believe that we can enjoy life, consume responsibly, and cooperate and share with others.

Freegans are also disgusted by the needless waste in a society that places no value on things that aren't being sold, where retailers buy goods cheaply with an intent to waste and pass that cost onto consumers in inflated retail places. We recognize that consumers are manipulated into wasting

Instead of working long hours to buy consumer commodities marketed to us by advertisers who try to convince us that we will find happiness in consumption but never tell us the social and ecological costs of the products we are buying, we recover wasted commodities (food, furniture, clothing, computers, books, CDS, etc) and spaces (abandoned buildings and lots), share what we have with others (using freecycle and at events like Really, Really Free Markets), embrace the possibility of our own local ecosystems to satisfy our basic needs through gardening and the foraging of wild plants. By limiting our need to buy, we limit our need to work, giving us time to spend with our families, volunteer in our communities, and take action in campaigning groups fighting the destruction of our world and the exploitation of human and animal life in the name of profit.

>Can anyone participate?

Yes. Freeganism is a truly diverse movement, including people of all ages, economic backgrounds, ethnicities, and even people with a wide range of beliefs.

The media, in an attempt to challenge stereotypes that freegans must all be hippies, punks, or homeless people has gone so far in the other direction that they have create another inaccurate stereotype-- that freegans are all middle class or wealthy people who recover waste as a form of protest. In reality, freegans seek to break down the class divisions that separate people, while building a culture that ensures that the needs of all are met. By creating freegans as a distinct category of "politically-motivated middle class people" as opposed to "desperate homeless and hungry people" the media cast homeless people as incapable of applying a political analysis to the conditions that define their own lives, which reinforces the message that "making it" in the capitalist economy demonstrates sophistication, sanity, and success, while anyone who isn't making money--either by choice or by circumstance-- is a failure and a hopeless case.

Yes, there are freegan teaachers, social workers, graphic designers, nonprofit admistrators, and even corporate execs, but our community also includes trainhopping hoboes, happily unemployed squatters, and also homeless people who appreciate our community and share our disgust at the waste and lack of compassion intrinsic to our overconsumptive, capitalist society.

>How do you put your philosophies into action?

see above and below

>Have you been successful in changing any policies (government or otherwise)?

Government reform hasn't primarily been a goal of ours. Many freegans are motivated by a commitment to direct action and believe that we can't look to government as an intermediary in solving problems in a society where the government is little more than a tool for corporate interests.

Instead we are interested in building people's movements and institutions to reduce dependence on both corporations and governments and reinvest in collective community action as the solution to our problems and the framework within which our needs will be met.

That said, many freegans are also involved in activist groups that use citizen and consumer pressure to influence the policies of elected officials and corporations, believing that we need to work for immediate reforms at the same time that we strive for broader social transformation. Many freegans are people who have been involved in activist groups of various types for years and grew tired of financing with our consumer purchases the same corporations we are fighting against as activists.

>What other activities do you encourage people to participate in? (i.e. your craigslist ride share, freecycle, etc.)

* 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. (Salvi) 3

* 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. (Brill)

* 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 friendl
y 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 dime. Freegans can find events and activities on email lists, free calendars, and websites like http://www.freeevents.org/ .

* 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.

>Some people may feel that all the food that ends up in the dumpster should go to the needy. Do you have a system set up for that?

Freegans beleive in mutual aid and empowerment far more than in charity. We'd rather show people how to feed themselves just as we do than create a relationship of dependency where they look to us to provide for them. Our group in New York will always take extra food when we go on our group urban foraging expeditions, and will walk around the city and hand these items to hungry people, explain where and how we got the items give the people a schedule of our upcoming group tours, and encourage them to join us and also to find items on their own. There is a myth that if there is good food on the streets, homeless people know where to find it, but there are newly homeless people all the time, and many are hungry, lonely, and bewildered. Being shown that they can feed themselves every day, that they don't need to depend on handouts or begging, and that they can be part of a community that will welcome them and treat them as an equal provides many with a great sense of relief and co
mfort. And for people who are new to the street and still horrified by the thought of going through garbage, being part of a group of happy, healthy people who do this on a regular basis together makes this activity not seem so scary or weird.

That said, it is also important to recognize that even if every bit of wasted food was approrpriately distributed to hungry people, there would still be an enormous volume of food waste. In the United States, the USDA recognizes 4.4 million hungry people

>Do you feel that Freeganism is more of a temporary solution to a long-term problem?

A growing number of analysts are warning that we are on the cusp of a triple threat catastrophe.

Avian influenza, by conservative estimates, may cause close to 2 billion human deaths when the disease mutates into an airborn form, something medical experts consider an inevitability. Poultry industry trade journals coldly discuss this reality, not as a humanitarian catastrophe, but as a potential threat to their profit margins). The spread of Avian influenza is a direct result of the keeping of domestic fowl for consumption, and its vast expansion has been hastened by the use of intensive confinement factory farms.

Credible studies now suggest that global climate change caused by livestock emissions (yes--cow farts) in a world that is increasingly shifting to a meat based diet, fossil fuel burning, forest destruction (because plants absorb carbon dioxide, they absorb enormous amounts of this destructive greenhouse gas, and landfill offgassing (gasses from rotting items in garbage dumps) may result in climatic conditions unseen in 650,000 years--longer than modern humans have existed! The result will be melting polar icecaps, flooding of coastal cities, complete submersion of many islands, frequent extreme weather events on the scale of Hurricane Katrina or worse, mass scale starvation as agricultural regions desertify, immense forest fires as wet forest areas become drier, huge numbers of deaths as regions are met with dangerously high temperatures (already a significant problem in Europe, where thousands have died of heatstroke in recent years that have been among the hottest on record), a
nd a rate of species extinction unseen since the formation of planet Earth.

Oil analysts are now predicting a petrocollapse within the next few decades. Predictions suggest that in the next four years, global oil production will peak and will thereafter decline to the point where we will no longer have adequate oil supplies to run a petroleum-based economy--within our lifetimes. Today, we use petroleum for fuel for our industrial machinery, vehicles, and as the primary ingredient in everything from plastic to pesticides. No other substance can fill this gap, and no alternative fuel source will allow industrial society to continue as we know it after we run out of oil. In a society where we depend on oil for heat, food, transportation, and communication, and have built our entire economy of global trade, mass production, and economic growth around the assumption of perpetual supplies of abundant petroleum, we will see an unprecendented economic and technological crash that will leave billions without vital resource needed for basic survival.

The alternative to all of this is a radical shift towards a society where we use only the resources we need, forage or grow (using low impact agricultural methods like permaculture and veganic gardening) locally rather than depending on an ecologically taxing, petroleum dependent global food production system, shift to a plant-based diet, and make a conscious choice to reduce global human population numbers. We will need to abandon an economic model based around convincing consumers to buy more, a system where everyone is competing for money to have the ability to consume more resources, to one where we build local communities that share resources and use as little as possible. This will mean vast social transformation-- the end of mass production, a radical shift away from technology, far simpler, smaller, and less resource consumptive homes using primitive cultures as a model--essentially a lifestyle much more like that of the native peoples of North American prior to European
conquest. In the process, we will gain far more than we lose--a renewed sense of community in a society where our survival depends on cooperation rather than competition, a closer connection to nature, a greater sense of kinship with wildlife, more time to spend with our families in a world where we aren't working 40-80 hours a week, better health as we stop polluting the environment and replace the couch potato lifestyle with physically demanding gardening and gathering. What we will lose is a culture where schools, government, and the media aren't constantly bombarding us with messages to obey, consume, let others make the critical decisions that run our lives, one where advertisers don't attack our self-esteem while hawking zit creams and boob jobs and fur coats, where we aren't slaving away at miserable jobs for corporations engaged in atrocities to make money to buy junk from other corporations. This may all seem extreme, but considering the ugly future that awaits if we d
on't change course now, it really is the only sane option available to us.

In its focus on building community, sharing, preventing waste, reconnecting with our local ecosystems, respect for the environment and the welfare of all sentient beings (including other humans!), and disengaging from the global capitalist economy by finding sustainable local alternatives, freeganism anticipates this kind of radical culture shift.

>What is the ultimate goal and where do you see the movement going?
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>Although the word “freegan” is derived from the words “free” and “vegan”, not everyone who practices abstains from meat and animal related products. How are the meat-eating freegans views different from regular freegans? Are they just as accepted by the movement?

Going vegan is an important step for people concerned about preventing animal suffering, improving their health, curbing environnental destruction, and ending world hunger. People who want to learn more about this livestyle should visit http://whyvegan.org

Freegans recognize, though, that even vegan goods can be produced using exploited labor, as in the case of African cholocate produced using child slaves, ecologically destructive farming practices like clearcutting rainforest to make land for banana and coffee plantations, and even animal cruelty, considering that crap farmers shoot, trap, and poison wildlife that they consider "agricultural pests."

In a capitalist society, no mass produced product is truly ecologically friendly, fair to workers, or humane to animals. In the singleminded pursuit of profit, corporations view such considerations as economic liabilities that will make them less competitive and only consider such issues as a marketing strategy. When the increase in sales from good public relations on a socially responsible policy doesn't lead to a net increase in profits considered against the frequently higher cost of more ethical business practices, corporations will not adopt the more socially responsible policies.

With this in mind, freegans draw less clear lines between "good" and "bad" products than vegan shoppers do. We recognize that EVERY product we buy makes us complicit in abusive practices, and that the most significant protest we can make against the values of this economy is not to buy "green" or "vegan" products, but to stop feeding money into the economy altogether. Thus, many freegans are less concerned about what we consume, and more concerned about what we pay for. To many freegans, using nonvegan products that have been discarded shows far more respect to the animals who suffered to make those products than to allow them to end up in a landfill, as it means that their hellish lives and terrible deaths won't be completely in vain. Others feel that it is more important to reinforce the notions that animals and their milk and eggs are not food, and choose to maintain a strict vegan diet along with being freegan. Both groups generally agree, though, that ANY freegan food, w
hether animal or plant based, represents a more socially responsible choice than purchasing vegan (and even moreso non-vegan) goods.

>How do Freegans feel about all the chemical additives used in food to preserve them? Is there a fear about just how long packaged foods last? How do you get around this?

While freegans are often asked how they know goods that have been discarded are safe, we turn that question back on consumers buying food from stores. The corporations who manufacture the foods we buy are concerned about profit, not about our health. That's why they market sugary cereal, fried snacks, and fast food to children, use unsafe, genetically modified plants and resist efforts to label them, aggressively market meat and dairy products in countries with a traditionally healthier diet based primarily on plant foods and downplay the dangers of these foods in countires where they are aleady popular, lobby the USDA to water down organic standards, and sue activists and threaten to pull advertisements from news programs for exposing the dangers in the foods they are producing, even when these exposes are completely factual.

In a society where the government largely shills for monied interests, we can't trust the products sold to us by megacorporations. That's why freegans wish to create a society where communities grow and forage their own food. At the same time, we feel a sense of responsibility to put all the resources generated through corporate food production to use. With access to large quantities, of almost any food sold in stores, many freegans over time tend to adopt a fairly healthy diet. At first some will overdo it with lots of free candy or donuts or pizza, but many (though definitely not all) over time shift towards a diet centered around whole foods, avoidance of meat and dairy products, a preference for organic produce, and avoidance of junk food. Of course, there are also freegans who enjoy the same sorts of unhealthy foods they previously bought in stores, so long as they are acquiring them without providing more money to corporations.

>How many cities have an established Freegan community?

Freegan.info doesn't have chapters, so it's pretty hard to say, especially since freeganism for many people is an "underground" practice. Our group is happy to talk to reporters and be very public about our activities, but many people aren't. And considering that squatters have faced brutal police evictions and some cities have tried to criminalize dumpster diving, this is understandable. There are a great many freegans in cities all over the world. Food Not Bombs has chapters in over 200 cities, not only in the first world countries, but also in places like Turkey, Burundi, Malaysia, and Argentina. To get a better sense of the global distribution of freegans, a freegan recently started http://www.frappr.com/freegans, a global map where freegans can list their locations, share their contact info, and find others to communicate with. We frequently communicate over email with freegans and sympathizers in such diverse places as Burkina Faso, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Russi
a, Canada, the UK, France, and other countries. Here in the US, we hear from people in cities throughout the country.

>Are there plans for world domination?

Through the mass media, our website, word of mouth, or simply seeing us rummaging goods on the street, people all over the world are recognizing that freeganism offers a better way of life where we can work less, have more time to devote to our families and communities, take responsibility for the impacts of our consumer choices, and radically transform the way communities live to a more localized, less consumptive, simpler, more cooperative, happier, and more compassionate model for society. Global capitalism is like a runaway train, as the profit motive drive every significant decision that effects the fate of our world, with no consideration of the destruction left in its wake--hundreds of thousands dead in wars for oil, animals tortured to test mascara or oven cleaner, workers treated like slaves in sweatshops, and environmental apocalypse. Our elected leaders do little more than pander to the wealthy elites and megacorporations who finance their elections and pad their poc
kets. People all over the world recognize that people need to take our collective fates and the fate of our world, into our own hands.

>How can someone start their own chapter of Freegan if there isn’t one in their area?

Freeganism is a movement, a philosophy, and a lifestyle, but at this point we are not a chapter-based organization.

Freegan.info is a New York-City based volunteer group that runs guided tours of retail trash, speaking at universities, hosting discussions on freeganism for newcomers, and hosting group dinners. We also run the freegan.info website with the cooperation of individual freegans on four continents. We encourage people worldwide to adopt freegan living practices, develop freegan events, activities, and institutions, and to engage others in these practices and ideas. We offer our website, http://freegan.info, as a resource for this purpose. Interested people can communicate with freegans worldwide via our email list. To join, send an email to freegan-world-subscribe@lists.riseup.net.

People in other cities are welcome to adapt our model to their own locales.

>Has the recent spike in media attention been beneficial?

Over the last two years, freeganism has exploded in the global media. Stories by news agencies like BBC World Service, Associated Press, Agence France Press, and APTN have run globally. Stories on freeganism have been created by reporters in the US, Canada, France, Germany, Holland, Austria, New Zealand, Russia, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Slovakia, Finland, Italy, Greece, the United Kingdom, Argentina, Mexico, Australia, China, Belgium, and other countries. This has helped us to create a global network of contacts working to share the freegan message.

At the same time, this attention has caused millions in first world countries to question the waste and overconsumption of our culture. Many have chosen to make changes in their own lifestyles. In nations in the East and the global South that challenge US government propaganda and corporate advertising that suggest that the whole world should adapt to a first world way of life. People have learned of the unequal distribution of resources, seen the massive volume of first world waste, and gained a greater appreciation of how this decadent culture is the juggernaut for global ecological catastrophe. We hope to inspire people to resist the expansion of US consumption patterns into their countries, to recognize alternatives based on embracing communities and careful and respectful use of resources, and to gain a greater appreciation for more sustainable and community-centered aspects of their tradition cultures.

>Tell us a little bit about the strategy of “urban foraging”, otherwise known as “dumpster diving”.

Alternatively known as trash picking, gleaning, dumpster diving, scavenging, salvaging, or curb crawling, urban foraging is the act of recovering useable goods discarded by retailers, schools, homes, businesses, construction sites - really anywhere anyone is throwing away goods that shouldn't be wasted. Frequently recovered items include clothing, food, furniture, computers, appliances, books, videos, DVDs, office supplies, lumber, tools, toys, umbrellas - just about anything you can buy in a store. Instead of buying products from corporations that test on animals, destroy rainforests, and exploit workers in sweatshops, urban foragers provide for their material needs by harvesting goods that would otherwise go to waste and end up in toxin-spewing incinerators or in space-consuming and leachate-leaking landfills. Urban foragers often collect goods both individually and in groups and frequently share the goods they find with others - at freemeets, on Freecycle, within intentional co
mmunities, with neighbors, or right on the streets. Groups like Food Not Bombs recover wasted foods and prepare warm meals that they serve on the streets to hungry people to challenge a society that always has money for war but never enough to ensure that all are fed. In New York City, Freegan.info runs group tours of retail waste with a focus on food. Participants take goods both for their own consumption and to redistribute to hungry people on the streets. Everyone is encouraged to join in on the next tour and learn how they can feed themselves directly with the waste of others.
>Have any of your fellow freegans been attacked or harassed by a NYC alley rat?

No.

Contrary to the image people may conjure, NYC retailers don't throw away their garbage in gloomy alleys-- rather they deposit the goods they discard in plastic bags and put them on the curb right in front of their stores. Trash collectors pick them up within 3 hours. Rats don't make themselves visible in public places during the evening hours when bags are discarded and collected, only coming out much later at night. Insects don't find their way into closed bags in such a short period of time, either.

>What else can people do to follow a more Freegan way of life?

Be an active participant in the world, not just a passive observer. Get involved in groups working for human rights, animal liberation, ecological defense, against globalization, promoting alternatives to mass consumerism, etc.

>SIDEBAR
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>Our side bar will be about your dumpster diving techniques. We’d like to basically give people a list of pointers, or tips, on how to dumpster dive properly, safely, and efficiently.
>If you could list off a dozen or so (or more!) of these that would be great!

* NEVER make a mess. If pulling items from dumpsters, leave nothing on the ground. Untie bags instead of tearing and retie when you are finished.

*Scared of getting sick from eating food from a dumpster? Don't be. Asked if dumpster diving is dangerous, Dr. Ruth Kava of the American Council on Science and Health commented "I guess you could hurt yourself falling headfirst into an empty Dumpster. Strange as it sounds, most food that's thrown out by stores is still safe to eat if you clean it and cook it appropriately."

*Any restaurant, health food store, or deli will almost certainly discard 100% of the food they don't sell from their salad bar, steam table, or buffet on a daily basis. An employee will go tray to tray and dump all the unsold food into a bag, tie the bag and throw it away. These bags generally contain nothing but food. While the foods may comingle just slightly, they are still fresh, clean, and delicious. You can either bring tupperware or rummage through other trash bags for container--you will always find some discarded plastic containers at these places.

*If you find goods that shouldn't be thrown away, but you have no use for, you can post them on your local freecyle or freesharing list.

* On the coldest days of winter, waterproof gloves or rubber gloves over your gloves can be helpful. Trash bags filled with food are generally wet with condensation, and the moisture will soak through porous gloves and make your hand VERY cold.

* If you are concerned about being bothered by store personnel, go when the store is closed. If that's not an option, try dialoguing with irate managers. Be sure to let them know that you will not leave a mess and will retie any bag you open. If it's true, you may wish to mention that you will be sharing the food with hungry and homeless people. Explain to them that you are concerned about waste, that you wish they would produce or order less, give them the names and contact information for some local food charities that would be willing to collect the goods they are needlessly discarding.

* Take more than you can personally use, so you can share what you find. In urban areas, you can walk the streets and give away all sorts of items to passersby--everyone from homeless people to corporate executives. In the process you will be helping people in need, promoting a culture of sharing, and educating people on the wastefulness of our culture. When doing this, it's helpful to have a flyer explaining where and why you got the stuff from. Of course, you can also give to friends and neighbors.

*BUT- with food items, don't take more than you can reasonable use or give away, unless a garbage truck is seconds away from collecting the trash. Better to leave goods in a dumpster where someone else can find them than to let them rot in your home.

* Don't worry about sell-by dates on food. According to Dr. Michael Greger, "Product dating is not required by federal regulations and varies by state to state. "Sell by" or "use by" dates are NOT safety dates. They tend to denote either how long a product can remain on store shelves or when they are recommended to be eaten for best flavor or quality. Properly stored, unopened packaged foods can typically be eaten safely for days after these dates have passed."

*That 32" TV on the curb? It probably works. Same with the 4 year old computer. Or the 5 disk CD player. Consumers, bombarded by advertising messages telling them to buy plasma screen TVs, faster computers, and mp3 players, are constantly discarding electronic good in perfect condition. Don't assume it's broken just because it looks too good to throw away.

*Reach carefully into dark bags in poor lighting. Though it is a rarity, one can sometimes find things like broken glass or other sharp objects. Flashlights solve this problem, of course.

* Dented cans? Not a problem. According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, "It’s okay to eat the food from dented cans...as long as the dent isn’t sharp enough to have pierced the can or isn’t on the seams that run down the side or around the top and bottom. But if the contents of a can (dented or not) spray when the lid seal is broken by the can opener, the food may harbor Clostridium botulinum­a bacterium that secretes the neurotoxin that causes botulism, a frequently fatal disease. Wipe up the sprayed contents immediately with a paper towel. Note any code or batch number that’s on the can before (carefully) throwing it in the trash. Use a disinfectant cleaner on the counter top and use a paper towel to wipe it up. Then report the incident to the manufacturer and to your local Health Department."

* If you live in New York City and see something great being thrown away on the curb but you can't take it, list it on http://garbagescout.com. Garbagescout allows people to post text messages from their cell phones or email notices from their computers to inform others of choice finds on the curb, so people can pick them up before the garbage collector gets them.

* Unfortunately, lots of stores, businesses, and homes don't recycle. Foragers frequently find large numbers of empty bottles and cans. In some cities, these can be brought to municipal recycling centers or to supermarkets with machines that provide a deposit for cans returned. Collect lots of bottles and you can make some decent money this way.

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