Fregans: Neo-Hunters and Gatherers

The New York Times featured the Freegan movement in the Thursday Home & Garden section. Than in itself is amusing - I don't think Fregans are setting out to be style trendsetters, or belonging to the local Garden Club, but I'm glad to see them catching media moments. Freeganism is an ideology which elevates reuse to an ideal, eschewing commercial transactions and instead meeting human needs through the waste stream. In third world countries such people are called scavengers. Before I read about Freegans, the common term for this behavior is Dumpster Diving, though I think Dumpster Diving is a hobby and Freeganism is a more total lifestyle.
The media describes Freegans as living off of garbage, but I think this misses the point. What passes for garbage in affluent neighborhoods is in fact NOT garbage, but rather all kinds of edible food and usable items, trashed but not trash. Freegans call attention to the extent of our wastefulness, and more power to them.
What's up with all this wastefulness? My theory is that in our society it is way easy to accumulate stuff, and far more difficult to restrain one's acquisition. Every kind of store we shop in has an immense variety of items, plus we also shop online and in big box stores where stuff is cheap and plentiful. We receive gifts, samples, hand-me-downs, and an endless supply of stuff accumulates in our homes. In urban areas, people simply place items on the street for quickly passing them along. Others use freecycle, informal networks, or perhaps give items to lower income employees or donate them. But some people apparently do put good items in the trash, not bothered by the fact that they are wasted. (Shame on them!) Hats off to groups like Dump and Run or campuses like Swarthmore College which recently organized a Trash to Treasure sale after the semester's end.