Dumpster Diving

On Friday, I was forwarded information about a company that several graduates of Lasell College are associated with. The company is called IzzitGreen. I went to the company web page to see what they were about. They have an interesting idea of providing a place to discuss "Is it good?" and "Is it green?" They are coming to Boston soon.

While I was on the site, I took a glance at the poll they had set up. The poll asked how far you would be willing to go to be green. One of the choices was dumpster diving. Dumpster diving? I had never heard of this so I did what I always do when I need more information- I googled it (notice I just used Google as a verb). From Google I ended up on the Wikipedia entry for Dumpster Diving and discovered this is actually a fairly common practice. People sift through dumpsters to discover items that they may be able to use. Trash to treasure! It has all kinds of slang names as listed on Wikipedia including urban foraging, binning, alley surfing, Curbing, D-mart, Dumpstering, garbaging, garbage picking, garbage gleaning, skip-raiding, skip diving, skipping, skip-weaseling, tatting, skally-wagging or trashing. In the end, I decided I would not go this far to be green and checked the box. 47% of the survey respondants agreed with me. It is interesting that 5% of the voters would rather dumpster dive than take pubic transportation.

I then realized dumpster diving is quite popular on You Tube. You have to look at this story. These guys get all their food from dumpsters. They do this not because they don't money to buy food but rather as a way to demonstrate how to live simply in a country that is filled with over consumption and waste. I am not about to start promoting dumpster diving by Lasell College student as a way to go green. Probably the best thing students could do is prevent food from ending up in the dumpster (or garbage disposal) in the first place. Only take what you are going to eat and choose vegetables and fruit as much as possible.