By Pamela Calderón Anaïs le Gallou Silvia López

As of 2005, individuals, businesses and institutions in the United States produced more than 245 million tons of municipal solid waste. That means about 4. 5 pounds person per day, according to statistics from the city’s Sanitation Department.

Freeganism started in the mid 1990’s, out of the antiglobalization and environmentalist movements. Freeganism is an anticonsumerist movement. Freegans have essentially an ethic motivation but also an economic motivation. They want to turn the back to the dominant system and to the wasting. They are anti-capitalist.

They want to limit the control that corporations and money have over our lives. To reduce our financial support for the destructive practices of MASSPRODUCERS , and act as a living challenge to waste and over comsumption. Freegans defend animal rights, human rights and environmentalism. They work for the respect to the earth, peaceful and equitable relationships among human. They are against a society based on materialism.

Freganism is developed in different strategies like : Dumpster diving, give aways, plate scraping or table diving, wild foraging or gardening, barter, shoplifting, returns… They also care about the saving of energy and water… This movement exists all over the world in the United States, Europe, Asia…

Philosophy • • • We provide for our needs without feeding the monster (consumerism). Ecological awareness: – Leather shoes – the insect poisoned for having the audacity to eat crops growing on lands that used to be their habitat – the forest that once stood on lands now controlled to only grow soybeans to feed our suffering animal. We need not make money to acquire goods that we won’t buy.

• Our time is instead spent directly acquiring the things we need, enjoying our time, or working to create a better world. • We recognize that the Earth is a home we share with a complex web of life and it must be respected and allowed to work in the benefit of all of its inhabitants.

• We believe another world is possible because another world is necessary. • In truth, freeganism is seeing beauty and value in that which is ignored, seeing horror behind the lies of the powerful, and seeing an enduring vision of hope for a world alive, flourishing, and free. • We think about how your life is wrapped up in the game of consumptions. • How much of your day is spent dealing with money? How does money affect your ideas about other people? Think abut how much more to life there is and find it, do it, go!

Freeganism: a counterculture? Is dumpster diving legal? “Technically, yes […], for when a person throws something out they are showing that they no longer have a use for it personally, so that item is now public domain, according to a 1988 Supreme Court Ruling (California vs. Greenwood)”. Dumpsters can be arrested or ticketed by the police if they are butt up against a building, or inside a fenced enclosure that says “No trespassing”.

Commercial dumpsters’ counterpoint They worry about industrial espionage, or people obtaining other persons’ credit information to be used for fraud.

Food stores’ main preoccupation is someone getting sick from what they throw away, and suing them. Signs on some dumpsters say “Warning, do not play on in or around dumpster” this is for the protection of the people who own the dumpster in case someone gets hurt in them.

The Squatters of São Paolo

How to squat a bulding? “We will go through a step-by-step guide on how to find your building, what to look for, and the cheapest and easiest ways of making it comfortable. Once you are in the building, you will have to deal with the law eventually, so we have included a section covering some basics to keep the police from messing you up…”

Steps: 1. How to Form a Group 2. Finding a Building and Investigating It 3. Getting In 4. Emergency Repairs 5. Light, Heat, and Fire Safety 6. Makeshift Toilets, Water, and Cooking 7. Legal Hassles

Conclusion There are two options for existence: 1) To waste your life working to get money to buy things that you don’t need and help destroy the environment. 2) To live a full satisfying life, occasionally working your self-sufficiency skills to get the food and stuff you need to be content, while treading lightly on the earth, eliminating waste, and boycotting everything.

3) Freeganism is a social and cultural subgroup rejected and alienated that tries to be accepted and recognized as part of the mindstream culture in an aggressive way. 4) They imposse their philosophy by trespassing private and public property and making them their of “own”.

Would you consider being a freegan?

Works Cited Fregan. Philosophy. Retrieved August 20 th, 2009, from www. freegan. info Fornabaio, Joe. Not Buying it! Retrieved August 20 th, 2009, from http: //www. nytimes. com/2007/06/21/garden/21 freegan. html? _r=2&oref=slogin Plocek, Keith. Free Lunch. Retrieved August 22 nd, 2009, from http: //www. houstonpress. com/2004 -11 -25/news/free-lunch/1

Fregan. Diving and the Law. Is Dumpster Diving Legal? August 22 nd, 2009, from http: //freegan. info/? page_id=168 How to squat a bulding August 23 rd, 2009, from http: //freegan. info/? page_id=172 Fregan. Squatters’ Handbook August 23 rd, 2009, from http: //rememberolivemorris. wordpress. com/category/squatting/ Fregan. August 23 rd, 2009, from http: //www. theskinny. co. uk/media/images/2183_medium. jp

Thank you!!!