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What is freeganism?

Freeganism is a portmanteau word made up of the words “free” and “veganism”. As you may already know, vegans reject animal abuse. They avoid consuming products which are derived from, or have been tested on, animals.

Meanwhile, freegans choose an alternative lifestyle which limits their participation in the conventional economy. Where possible, they avoid buying things in favour of recovering food from other sources.

The basis for this anticonsumerist ideology is that primary needs such as eating, sleeping or having a place to live should be freely available to all. Freeganism’s ethics also extend to environmental values linked to responsibility and sustainability.

A person may become freegan due to their personal convictions, or by necessity. In any case, the practice opposes overconsumption by recovering food surplus from households and businesses, from trash cans, dumpsters and other waste receptacles.

Freeganism is often associated with “dumpster diving”, a practice which basically means searching through dumpsters, containers and waste storage locations to find food which is still suitable to eat. Those who do it consider the health risk to be low and some even say it boosts the immune system. Depending on the type of food, and the place where it is recovered, the risk is acceptable.

If it’s in a public location, there’s no legal problem at all as waste is considered as not belonging to anyone. Therefore it can in theory belong to anyone and everyone.

However, some food chains take a negative view towards freeganism for fear of getting a bad reputation or on management orders. Some supermarkets destroy their waste on-site or spray bleach on it to combat freeganism. Recovering food can therefore sometimes be problematic.

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