Dumped

This Sunday BBC America is starting a new reality show called "Dumped" and features 11 people spending 3 weeks in a British dump.

I must admit, the show seems fascinating. I wonder what the 11 people will be like? Will they consists of shopaholics? Business men and women? The show is a four part series and will begin this Sunday evening. So the big question is: would you spend three weeks in a dump? If so, what would be your biggest reason for wanting to do this?

A week or so ago I caught an Oprah Winfrey show about people who dumpster dive every day. They call themselves "Freegans" and they eat, dress and furnish their homes out of what they find in dumpsters. It kind of puts my twice weekly dumpster search to shame. I have so much respect for Freegans who are brave enough to search through dumpsters on a nightly routine. I must admit my biggest problem is being nervous about someone seeing me. I shouldn't care what others think but I still haven't quite won that battle yet. Even after I watched Oprah I had the urge to head to my super market and see what food I could find. But alas I stayed home and instead nibbled on too expensive, organic blood oranges and almonds.

I would love to experience the three weeks in a dump just to see what I would find and how I could survive. It's kind of like being on a smelly desert island with lots of stuff around to live on. It is certainly something to contemplate.

Comments

[Selena]

I should add that I found this link after I posted this:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=478598&in_page_id=1770
I still think it brings up an interesting idea of actually surviving on a landfill even if it isn't as honest as it appears.

[ash]

I think that show sounds amazing! Too bad we won't get it here!

[Janelle]

I read article about those "freegans" and how supermarket owners are angry with them. The owners say the food, for the most part, is thrown for good reason and they are afraid that the people taking it will get sick and come after them, legally wise.

[TACE]

Thanks for the heads up about the show. I have set it to record, should be interesting. It's a little less exciting having read that news article about how much was..fake or...arranged but still...could be interesting.

[Kindra]

Unfortunately I don't get that channel. :( But it sounds great! I think I could find some great junk in 3 weeks! Don't know if I could do it though. I'm the same way if I see something that someone has thrown away that I can use, I'm scared that someone will see me do it. Don't know why it's just trash to them and a treasure for me...

[emily]

I saw abit on freegans on Ramsay Gordon's "F Word". Very interesting. I feel that the supermarkets, food centres, hotels should 'donate' their near-expiry date or near-sell-by date products to the homeless shelters, state old folks homes, orphanages etc instead of putting them in the dumpsters! And yes DH will divorce me if I ever went near a dumpster. I am already a hoarder which is bad enough!

[Gill]

Ooh no I couldn't spend three weeks in a dump, but I do think it should be made eaiser for us all to recycle our unwanted stuff. At my local dump, I see piles of furniture, household goods etc but NO WAY will the (mostly) unhelpful guys there allow us to look through them and take them away. Surely we should encouraged to do that, means less for the landfill site. Personally I think they have their own agenda, probably some backdoor deal with someone who sells it all on at boot sales!I belong to my local Freecycle group which is a fantastic organisation; I've given away several items to delighted recipients and have managed to bag a couple of bits. Shouldn't Governments be promoting Freecycle?!! It might get us over that fear of what other people might think about us looking through skips.

[sherry]

I would be scared of creepy crawly things that might live at the dump. I could not take the smells and the critters. It would be like a nightmare for me. I have dumpster dived for fabric, at a fabric mill, years ago, but I was braver then.
I don't think our local grocers put anything out that people can get to. Most grocers in our town donate near out of date stuff to a food bank that helps shelters and other non-profits with food needs, and that is good.
I used to work in a school cafeteria, and they collected the food scraps that kids didn't eat and a farmer came by every evening to gather the cans of 'slop' for his pigs. That is cool.

[monica]

I'd hate to ruin it for you... but I think it's a 'fake' show... I've never seen it... but I seem to remember reading about it...

[susans at black eyed susans kitchen]

I saw the show with the freegans and found it pretty interesting. My daughter came home the other day with a friend who showed her how to get magazines from the recycle center. She had a Marie Claire and a Style and a Vogue. They were barely a month old. When it comes to food though, I think that living in the burbs, I would rather try to grow some in a garden then hope that what I was finding wasn't tainted. We are working on a little victory/veggie garden in out own backyard this year. We have been doing the communtity plot gardening every year and will continue that as well. The dump has rats and other vermin that would probably freak me out. I enjoyed your post. Susan

[rebecca]

I am possibly the cheapest person on the planet, well, I would be if I could stop the diet cola habit, and I dress almost exclusively from thrift stores, drive a used (and paid for) car, and try never to buy anything new, well, just because. I do, however, worry about an economy in which people don't buy anything new. Although, given the multi-billion write down that is currently occurring, it will probably be like this show. This may be a preview of how we all live for the next 20 years. Except we won't be Marie Antoinette playing at being Shepardess, but rather scrounging for buried cans like in "A Boy and his Dog." ok, I'm going to go bury some canned goods now.

[Elizabeth]

I saw the programme about living on a dump last summer when it was shown on Channel 4 here in the UK. It made very interesting viewing and really made me think about the amount of waste we all throw away without thinking too much about it. It's definitely not a 'fake' show. We don't have many in the way of Freegans in the UK, although one was featured as the wife in a recent 'Wife Swap', again she brought a very interesting take on our throwaway society, and even managed to convince the high-spending family she swapped with to rethink their ways a bit.

[Carrie]

They should round up all of those dirty buggers from "How Clean Is Your House" and let them live there-they would feel right at home!

[Valerie]

Hi
I'm like you. I admire these people, but would be too nervy & self conscious to behave that way myself. It's outrageous that we (individuals & companies alike) all waste so much food, material, furniture, paper ... we throw things into landfill that could be re-used, re-worked. Freegans might be extreme, but they hold a mirror up to the rest of us and say 'look at your own behaviour'. I'm trying to do my bit, but am living in a society that makes it cheaper to buy budget clothing from China, wear it once, bin it & buy another - rather than buy a quality item, wash it carefully, iron, re-wear time and time again. Okay, I'm getting off my soapbox now! Valerie

[svelteSTUFF]

I had never heard of the term 'Freegan' and am glad you brought up the topic! THANKS for a great Blog - hope you don't mind that I linked to it recently in one of my posts! S-

[Jennifer]

My friend Michael lives in Knoxville, Tennessee and goes dumpster-diving with his freegan friends. He found a really nice bike frame and they helped him fix it. Now he rides that to school. I'm not sure if any women dumpster dive with them - it can get dangerous in the city. Once his friend Raymond was in a dumpster when he realized that he was standing on what he thought was a dead body. When he started freaking out the "dead body" woke up - it was an insane hobo sleeping in the dumpster under the trash to keep warm.