Not Buying It - freegans

From the NY Times, "Not Buying It".

With the net enabling us all to act on our imagination farther, faster, deeper and cheaper than ever before, it is no surprise that freeganning along with freecycle has taken off.

Web site freegan.info.

The site, which provides information and listings for the small but growing subculture of anticonsumerists who call themselves freegans †the term derives from vegans, the vegetarians who forsake all animal products, as many freegans also do †is the closest thing their movement has to an official voice. And for those like Ms. Elia and Ms. Kalish, it serves as a guide to negotiating life, and making a home, in a world they see as hostile to their values.

Freegans are scavengers of the developed world, living off consumer waste in an effort to minimize their support of corporations and their impact on the planet, and to distance themselves from what they see as out-of-control consumerism. They forage through supermarket trash and eat the slightly bruised produce or just-expired canned goods that are routinely thrown out, and negotiate gifts of surplus food from sympathetic stores and restaurants.