Dumpster Diving Essay

First I will summarize an excerpt out of Heather Roger's essay, Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage published in 2005. Second I will summarize Lars Eighner essay On Dumpster Diving published in 1995. Our government needs to immediately enforce a set of strict standardized laws that carefully regulate and monitor the disposal of todays and more importantly tomorrow trash. I will argue that this is necessary for large corporations and businesses to deduce their consumption. Finally I will argue that we need to educate the public about the importance and need to restrict our consumption to secure our future.

In today’s society, there is an abundance of waste. This is clear in observing how people live, we often throw out items because we want something better. Lars Eighner, author of "On Dumpster Diving," writes about his experiences being homeless and how he survived on the waste of others. This provides insight on how the phrase "one man's trash is another man's treasure," is true. Jeremy Seifert, who directed the documentary Dive!, also talks about how he survives off of other people's waste, but this was a decision he made. As they tell of their experiences, Seifert and Eighner both come to the conclusion that society is wasteful. While both individuals provided good information, I believe Seifert presented the better argument. Both of

Lars Eighners essay “On Dumpster Diving” describes the lifestyle of living out of a dumpster. Lars demonstrates that anyone can achieve a fulfilling life without the constraints of society and material wealth. He finds nearly everything he needs and sometimes more just from the refuse of others. Firstly, what is dumpster diving? Dumpster diving is the practice of sifting through commercial or residential waste in order to obtain items one might find useful that have been discarded by their owners. Dumpster diving is largely associated with the homeless or people with little or no source of income. In January 2013, 610,042

One of the ways food is unnecessarily wasted is through the USDA’s grading of produce based on cosmetic value. Produce with cosmetic imperfections are valued at a lesser price and thus often farmers will not even make the effort to sell produce that has nothing wrong with it other than the fact that it is “ugly” (Glickman, 2015). Furthermore, businesses are required to throw out food that has passed its expiration date. However, expiration dates tend to be quite random and often have little truth to them (Glickman, 2015). They are simply to be used as estimates but end up adding to the amount of food waste. And all the food waste lands in landfills that cause the release of methane gas into the earth’s atmosphere. In fact, food waste which is categorized as organic waste is the primary source of methane gas (Baussan et. Al,

Food waste is an environmental, economic, and ethical problem that can lead to less calorie intake and unnecessary damage of our assets. Individual behavior can redesign food waste at home and lead to bigger changes in the ecosystem. The problem is Americans throw out more food than glass, paper, and plastic. Also about 25% of food grown, processed, and transported in the US will never be consumed. When food is disposed in a landfill it rots and becomes a significant source of methane— a potent greenhouse gas with 21 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide.

Many individuals are accustomed to waste at least a portion of what they buy, whether it is food, clothes, furniture, supplies, or materials worldwide. According to the article: “On Dumpster Diving” many valuable items were found by the homeless who searched the dumpster for food. Surprisingly, they found useful items that helped them survive throughout each day. In fact, the products were worth for the exchange of money. At certain times, I myself may be considered to be a wasteful person during certain times such as, not finishing my drink and throwing more than half of it away. While rushing at work during break, this is a usual situation for many people Although, it isn't necessarily on purpose it is considered wasteful, valuable and influence advertising.

Dumpster Diving: Beneficial Yet Detrimental When people think about dumpsters, a disgusted image of wretched odors, tornadoes of flies, and spilled sour liquids comes to their minds. In addition, they stay away from dumpsters, fearing they would catch some type of illness. Yet, people don’t know that dumpsters has all types of treasures.

The consumer culture of America has led to a generation that believes obtaining the latest Iphone or an expensive car is essential for happiness. Eighner, in “On Dumpster Diving,” declares they are wrong. In “On Dumpster Diving,” Eighner describes his unique personal experiences from living on the street, and reflects on the lessons he learned from his experiences. Through meaningful syntax and diction, and a non-critical tone, Eighner challenges the audience to question their futile hunt for meaningless objects and wastefulness, and consider living by the lessons Eighner learned on the streets.

When most people think about a homeless man or a “bum”, words like drunk, addict, and lazy come to mind. These characteristics are true in some cases, but in others it’s just a way of stereotyping people, like the notion that blonde girls are dumb or Asians are bad drivers. In the two articles “On Dumpster Diving” by Lars Eighner and “The Lady in Red” by Richard Lemieux, Eighner provides for himself free of cost by dumpster diving, but Lemieux is simply at what most people would call “rock bottom” of his life at the time, so he resorts to begging people for money. These two men are not your typical drunk bums hanging out behind a dumpster, they are

Although Lar Eighner, writer of “On Dumpster Diving”, began dumpster diving when he became homeless, he believes the act should be referred to as scavenging. When first beginning to dumpster dive, he felt scavenging was not very challenging, rather he felt that he could find what he needed with simply looking. All it would take is a fraction of athleticism just to lower their body into the dumpster, but also knowing how to distinguish if the food they were about to consume was decent or better just to leave it where it was found. Not thinking highly and becoming frustrated with those who would ask if the food found in the dumpsters were acceptable for eating. I am fond of his offerings of ways to succeed. One example offered to visit a pizza

In the article "On Dumpster Diving", Lars Eighner discusses his experience of dumpster diving. Eighner was born in Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1946 and worked as an attendant and ward worker from 1980-1987 before finding himself homeless for three years. According to Eighner, he began dumpster diving about a year before he became homeless, also, Eighner states that he still lacks the athletic ability to lower himself into the dumpsters as the true divers do. He calls himself a scavenger as he live from the refuse of others. Furthermore, he discusses that while he was still living in the house with his dog Lizbeth, he started extracting the necessities of daily from dumpsters as his savings ran out and they ate from dumpsters, also, all his clothes

“On Dumpster Diving” by Lars Eighner he gives us an autobiographical account of his life and how he was homeless after he lost his job as an attendant in Austin, Texas’s state hospital. The story begins to focus on Eighner’s experiences of scavenging through dumpsters for food because people waste food and he does not have any to eat. He begins his argument and tells us how he was always fascinated by dumpsters and said: “long before I began Dumpster diving I was impressed with Dumpsters” (Eighner 2013). As I began to read this article I was disgusted that a man could eat out of the trash can.

Stores especially, are the most wasteful, throwing away perfectly good items every single day. Large amounts of food are discarded because of cosmetic reasons, stocking unavailability, or due to lack of freshness (Porter). Every day, restaurants discard food that is only 24 hours old to be destroyed. Eighner explains in his story, “Yogurt, cheese, and sour cream are items that

According to “On Dumpster Diving” by Lars Eighner, food plays a significant role in everyone’s lives. “On Dumpster Diving” is a story of a person who is alone and homeless. He has nothing to eat. The only source of food he got is a dumpster. He picks food from there and makes various suggestions and statements while picking the food up.

Conventional shipping cartons have ventilation holes which allows air to circulate around the product, but this also allows the produce to continue ripening and exposes to bacteria and pathogens, which contributes to loss. FreshTec’s patented packaging technology employs a breathable plastic liner inside a cardboard carton, which is sealed with a plastic lid. It’s part of a growing segment of food packaging using modified atmosphere technology. The liner and plastic lid slow the amount of oxygen entering the carton and also traps some of the carbon dioxide the produce expels, effectively putting it to sleep for up to a month of travel time. Overall, FreshTec provides more time for produce to reach the market, which reduce the likelihood of loss or waste.