Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Dumpster Fairies
[yet another paper I wrote for WR2...let's just say it was supposed to be based on personal experience but this is not a work of non-fiction. o well.]
I remember when she finally told me, I couldn’t believe it. “Are you serious? You just feed me food you got out of the dumpster?!” Images of old, dirty homeless men with impossibly grimy hands sifting through trash immediately came to mind. I had seen them on the streets of Chicago, but I never thought that someone my age, living seemingly well would do or even think about of something like that. Then again, Cat and Sean were the only anarchist I’d ever met. In front of me Days of War, Nights of Love, a short, condensed book on anarchy, sat on the table in front of me. “Read it, there’s a chapter on dumpstering,” Sean suggested. Though I sadly never got around to, I began my education on dumpster diving on that night.
The more I hung around with them, the more dumpstered items began to appear in my life: complete meals (all of which were seven times better than what I’d been receiving), clothing, art supplies, furniture, and other items of the sort. It wasn’t just items that appeared, there were people as well; Michael, Melissa, and Marne over the coarse of time had come into the picture.
From the five of them, I learned how bakeries and food stores would generally throw out bags and bags of perfectly good day old bread; and how if you sometimes look behind department stores, you can find clothing that’s been thrown out. I also learned that more and more dumpsters around Chicago were beginning to be locked up because of irresponsible kids that throw the trash everywhere when they dumpster dive; thus ruining it for everyone else.
From books and articles, I learned how two thousand years ago the world’s population survived by hunting and gathering; and that with the rise of civilization, hunting and gathering became obsolete. I learned that all modern-day scavengers are hunter-gatherers. They defined it as sublimating choice to the bigger thrill of chance. They believed that by doing so, dumpster diving translated into saving money, potentially working less, and dodging whatever market sector some genius thinks you belong to. Dumpster diving lends it’s self to the side of uncertainty and randomness. You’ll never know what you’ll get; and that was the point. That was the challenge, the payoff and the thrill: the never knowing, the waiting, and then the finding out. I learned that these are the very feelings that made Christmas and birthdays exciting as a kid. By dumpstering you can allow yourself to experience and indulge in these feelings.
May had rolled around and my budget was getting pretty tight. I had just bought an apartment with three other friends and the start up payments alone were daunting. Though I’d learned about dumpster diving more than a year before and had become comfortable eating and using things my friends had gained from it, I had yet to actually go out and dumpster dive myself. I had been putting it off. In reality I was a little scared. I tend to get skittish when breaking laws; even if it’s something dumb like trespassing or civil disobedience. This was both.
Walking under the orange hued streetlights, I made my way to the Ukrainian Village to meet up at Cat’s apartment. The over-sized bag on my back made a slight clinking noise as I made my way there. It was empty and light; but would soon be full. Outside her place, a black road bike, with short white handles was U-locked to the fence. Michael would be coming with us on our run.
They were waiting for me in the driveway. Blessedly, Cat had convinced her roommate, Hannah, to allow us to use her car. It was one of those spring nights when the tempter had dropped to 40 degrees. Though a month and a half ago I would have rejoiced for days that were that warm, I now shivered in my thin jacket. Quickly we piled into the car. Cat and Michael up front, and I was in the back. Cat turned the key in the ignition and we were off.
Sean had told me weeks before about this Odwalla plant/warehouse up north. He said they were throwing dumpsters full of the drinks out everyday and that the plant had so much overstock, that they were throwing them out a week before their sell by date even came up. He said that he and his roommates had been taking trips up there and that now Lower Case was stacked to the brim with Odwalla drinks.
I had hoped that we would head up there, but alas we didn’t. Mainly we stuck to bakeries in Wicker Park and Pilson. Though we thought about hitting up the Dunkin Doughnuts in the South Loop, we decided against it; there were too many cops in that area.
So far the run was pretty standard, according to Cat and Michael. Already we had two bags full of beagles, baguettes, loaves of bread, and muffins. We decided the next place to hit was Aldi. Along the way we drove through residential allies, as those were good places to find furniture, clothing and other things that may or may not be necessities.
We made our way through them quickly and diligently avoiding dumpsters that smelled especially toxic. We wore dark clothing, close toed shoes, and gloves to keep from being both seen and from getting “dumpster juice” on us. To help the digging go easier, Michael brought a flashlight with LED lights in it. It took all of maybe 30 minutes but when we left we had three cardboard boxes full of rice, pasta, and canned food as well as a large pink rug, two fans, a large lamp, two pairs of mannequin legs, a shower curtain, one roll of 120 Kodak Portra 400 NC film, two binders, various photo supplies, clothing, a hat, a flower pot, 3 sauce pans, a measuring up, various cleaning supplies, tape, and a wicker chair with a hole in the seat which Michael said he would fix. We decided that the night was going especially well and that we should make a pit stop at my place to drop off the items. It didn’t take long, as we were anxious to get to Aldi and see if there was any fruits and produce we could get.
As we pulled up to the store, we drove around back, turned down our music and headlights. Cat turned off the car and we piled out. The back of Aldi was lit with bright white spotlights. Since I had been put on scouting duty, I quickly looked around to see if there were any security cameras. There were none; at least none that I could see. Michael and Cat gingerly opened the top of the dumpster and climbed in. For several minutes all I could hear was the sound of them. “Shit!” Cat yelled. “Are you ok?” I asked. “Yeah, she’s just clumsy.” Michael called back. “Shut up Michael,” she muttered to him.
Carefully they began the process of shifting through the bags of trash. The sweet smell of rotting fruits and coffee grounds came wafting to my nose. “Uh… found box of strawberries, I don’t think we could use them though. They look pretty sketch,” Michael called out. “Oh sweet! Bananas! They’re lookin’ pretty brown, but I think we can use them to make some banana bread.” He popped his head over the side of the dumpster and dropped the box into my hands. Thus the process continued again. They shifted through the trash, called out what they found, and handed the items to me to set in the car.
I was still filling a little bit skittish but felt as if I was becoming more and more comfortable as the night wore on. I listened to the sounds of traffic moving on the streets around us and for any signs that we might be ousted. It began soft, but became louder. It was the sound of footsteps and a swishing I couldn’t name. I turned my head in the direction in which I heard the footsteps. A dark figure appeared out of the shadows and was coming nearer by the second; though it moved rather slowly.
I felt the pressure build inside my chest as I began to panic. “Uh guys…. Guys!” I urgently whispered. Clearly not having heard me, they continued shifting through the dumpster. I began slapping the dumpster with my open hand. “GUYS!” “What?!” Michael yelled. “Dude, there’s someone coming!” I told him. “Shit!”
Out of the dumpster jumped Michael and Cat. We began scrambling to the car. “It’s ok!” came a small grainy voice. We slowed down and looked back at the figure. It stepped into the light to reveal a tiny old woman. She was holding up her hand in mid wave. She had a kindly face and didn’t seem to want to harm us in the least, “I’m here to get some food too. I’ve been doing this for years, you know.” “Oh,” was the only response I could think of. This woman caught me a little off guard; she wasn’t exactly who or what I had expecting to see. I glanced over at my two friends. Michael was glanced at me, shaking his head while Cat just laughed. “Sometimes Brit, sometimes,” Michael said quietly to me.
Bibliography:
The Scavengers Manifesto: Why Dumpster Diving Can Save You from Going Off the Deep End | Environment | AlterNet
By Anneli Rufus, AlterNet. Posted: March 21, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/environment/132736/the_scavenger's_manifesto:_why_dumpster_diving_can_save_you_from_going_off_the_deep_end/
Dumpster Diving, Ethnography
By Marleymiles Posted: February 21, 2009
http://thesmallaxe.wordpress.com/2009/02/21/dumpster-diving-an-ethnography/
I remember when she finally told me, I couldn’t believe it. “Are you serious? You just feed me food you got out of the dumpster?!” Images of old, dirty homeless men with impossibly grimy hands sifting through trash immediately came to mind. I had seen them on the streets of Chicago, but I never thought that someone my age, living seemingly well would do or even think about of something like that. Then again, Cat and Sean were the only anarchist I’d ever met. In front of me Days of War, Nights of Love, a short, condensed book on anarchy, sat on the table in front of me. “Read it, there’s a chapter on dumpstering,” Sean suggested. Though I sadly never got around to, I began my education on dumpster diving on that night.
The more I hung around with them, the more dumpstered items began to appear in my life: complete meals (all of which were seven times better than what I’d been receiving), clothing, art supplies, furniture, and other items of the sort. It wasn’t just items that appeared, there were people as well; Michael, Melissa, and Marne over the coarse of time had come into the picture.
From the five of them, I learned how bakeries and food stores would generally throw out bags and bags of perfectly good day old bread; and how if you sometimes look behind department stores, you can find clothing that’s been thrown out. I also learned that more and more dumpsters around Chicago were beginning to be locked up because of irresponsible kids that throw the trash everywhere when they dumpster dive; thus ruining it for everyone else.
From books and articles, I learned how two thousand years ago the world’s population survived by hunting and gathering; and that with the rise of civilization, hunting and gathering became obsolete. I learned that all modern-day scavengers are hunter-gatherers. They defined it as sublimating choice to the bigger thrill of chance. They believed that by doing so, dumpster diving translated into saving money, potentially working less, and dodging whatever market sector some genius thinks you belong to. Dumpster diving lends it’s self to the side of uncertainty and randomness. You’ll never know what you’ll get; and that was the point. That was the challenge, the payoff and the thrill: the never knowing, the waiting, and then the finding out. I learned that these are the very feelings that made Christmas and birthdays exciting as a kid. By dumpstering you can allow yourself to experience and indulge in these feelings.
May had rolled around and my budget was getting pretty tight. I had just bought an apartment with three other friends and the start up payments alone were daunting. Though I’d learned about dumpster diving more than a year before and had become comfortable eating and using things my friends had gained from it, I had yet to actually go out and dumpster dive myself. I had been putting it off. In reality I was a little scared. I tend to get skittish when breaking laws; even if it’s something dumb like trespassing or civil disobedience. This was both.
Walking under the orange hued streetlights, I made my way to the Ukrainian Village to meet up at Cat’s apartment. The over-sized bag on my back made a slight clinking noise as I made my way there. It was empty and light; but would soon be full. Outside her place, a black road bike, with short white handles was U-locked to the fence. Michael would be coming with us on our run.
They were waiting for me in the driveway. Blessedly, Cat had convinced her roommate, Hannah, to allow us to use her car. It was one of those spring nights when the tempter had dropped to 40 degrees. Though a month and a half ago I would have rejoiced for days that were that warm, I now shivered in my thin jacket. Quickly we piled into the car. Cat and Michael up front, and I was in the back. Cat turned the key in the ignition and we were off.
Sean had told me weeks before about this Odwalla plant/warehouse up north. He said they were throwing dumpsters full of the drinks out everyday and that the plant had so much overstock, that they were throwing them out a week before their sell by date even came up. He said that he and his roommates had been taking trips up there and that now Lower Case was stacked to the brim with Odwalla drinks.
I had hoped that we would head up there, but alas we didn’t. Mainly we stuck to bakeries in Wicker Park and Pilson. Though we thought about hitting up the Dunkin Doughnuts in the South Loop, we decided against it; there were too many cops in that area.
So far the run was pretty standard, according to Cat and Michael. Already we had two bags full of beagles, baguettes, loaves of bread, and muffins. We decided the next place to hit was Aldi. Along the way we drove through residential allies, as those were good places to find furniture, clothing and other things that may or may not be necessities.
We made our way through them quickly and diligently avoiding dumpsters that smelled especially toxic. We wore dark clothing, close toed shoes, and gloves to keep from being both seen and from getting “dumpster juice” on us. To help the digging go easier, Michael brought a flashlight with LED lights in it. It took all of maybe 30 minutes but when we left we had three cardboard boxes full of rice, pasta, and canned food as well as a large pink rug, two fans, a large lamp, two pairs of mannequin legs, a shower curtain, one roll of 120 Kodak Portra 400 NC film, two binders, various photo supplies, clothing, a hat, a flower pot, 3 sauce pans, a measuring up, various cleaning supplies, tape, and a wicker chair with a hole in the seat which Michael said he would fix. We decided that the night was going especially well and that we should make a pit stop at my place to drop off the items. It didn’t take long, as we were anxious to get to Aldi and see if there was any fruits and produce we could get.
As we pulled up to the store, we drove around back, turned down our music and headlights. Cat turned off the car and we piled out. The back of Aldi was lit with bright white spotlights. Since I had been put on scouting duty, I quickly looked around to see if there were any security cameras. There were none; at least none that I could see. Michael and Cat gingerly opened the top of the dumpster and climbed in. For several minutes all I could hear was the sound of them. “Shit!” Cat yelled. “Are you ok?” I asked. “Yeah, she’s just clumsy.” Michael called back. “Shut up Michael,” she muttered to him.
Carefully they began the process of shifting through the bags of trash. The sweet smell of rotting fruits and coffee grounds came wafting to my nose. “Uh… found box of strawberries, I don’t think we could use them though. They look pretty sketch,” Michael called out. “Oh sweet! Bananas! They’re lookin’ pretty brown, but I think we can use them to make some banana bread.” He popped his head over the side of the dumpster and dropped the box into my hands. Thus the process continued again. They shifted through the trash, called out what they found, and handed the items to me to set in the car.
I was still filling a little bit skittish but felt as if I was becoming more and more comfortable as the night wore on. I listened to the sounds of traffic moving on the streets around us and for any signs that we might be ousted. It began soft, but became louder. It was the sound of footsteps and a swishing I couldn’t name. I turned my head in the direction in which I heard the footsteps. A dark figure appeared out of the shadows and was coming nearer by the second; though it moved rather slowly.
I felt the pressure build inside my chest as I began to panic. “Uh guys…. Guys!” I urgently whispered. Clearly not having heard me, they continued shifting through the dumpster. I began slapping the dumpster with my open hand. “GUYS!” “What?!” Michael yelled. “Dude, there’s someone coming!” I told him. “Shit!”
Out of the dumpster jumped Michael and Cat. We began scrambling to the car. “It’s ok!” came a small grainy voice. We slowed down and looked back at the figure. It stepped into the light to reveal a tiny old woman. She was holding up her hand in mid wave. She had a kindly face and didn’t seem to want to harm us in the least, “I’m here to get some food too. I’ve been doing this for years, you know.” “Oh,” was the only response I could think of. This woman caught me a little off guard; she wasn’t exactly who or what I had expecting to see. I glanced over at my two friends. Michael was glanced at me, shaking his head while Cat just laughed. “Sometimes Brit, sometimes,” Michael said quietly to me.
Bibliography:
The Scavengers Manifesto: Why Dumpster Diving Can Save You from Going Off the Deep End | Environment | AlterNet
By Anneli Rufus, AlterNet. Posted: March 21, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/environment/132736/the_scavenger's_manifesto:_why_dumpster_diving_can_save_you_from_going_off_the_deep_end/
Dumpster Diving, Ethnography
By Marleymiles Posted: February 21, 2009
http://thesmallaxe.wordpress.com/2009/02/21/dumpster-diving-an-ethnography/
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