The Frickin’ Freegans – How Waste Could Save Us

My title isn’t meant to offend – actually, it’s just a little reference from a great story about how what we think could be revolting and disgusting could, in fact, actually boost our economy and help out the environment at the same time.
All Food Is Salvaged

In the summer of 2007, I was on the college hunt. At this particular point in summer, I was at Reed College near Portland, Oregon. Great school – even if I ended up going to NYU. Portland is rather famous as an alternative lifestyle bastion, and the Reed campus was no exception. When my father and I sat down in the cafeteria to have lunch, we noticed something sort of strange going on.

A student, done with his lunch, placed his plate, containing the remains of a sandwich, on a table. Weird thing was, there were a lot of plates on this table with a lot of half-eaten food. And, weirder still, people were eating of these plates. This left my dad totally confused. I explained that I was pretty sure this was freeganism. I think at this point he even called my mom and said the infamous words: “I guess we got a bunch of frickin’ freegans over here.”