Voice Of A Nation Speaks For Freegans

The New York Times ran a [comprehensive article] on [freeganism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeganism) a couple of days ago that nicely echoes the one [we printed last June](http://www.nypress.com/19/24/news&columns/feature.cfm) (as in 2006). This time around, the focus was on a recent NYU Dorm Dive, where lucky freegans walked away with privileged students’ castaways, including working TVs and iPods, in addition to all the typical refuse.

Forget the fact that a TV or an iPod—be it store-purchased, found in a dumpster or even homemade—plugs you into the larger consumer world—regardless of whether you’re Paris Hilton or [No Impact Man] himself. Dumpster diving may be a start, but perhaps extremist groups would be better served by rallying the mainstream—those who have the largest affect on consumer culture and the environment—than by alienating them with pleas to forego toilet paper or eat food out of the trash can à la George Costanza.