BYU NewsNet - To dive, or not to dive? That is the lifestyle

Almost everyone has a dumpster diving story — many involve searching for a lost retainer, a misplaced wedding ring or an accidentally tossed-away debit card. Most people don’t go inside a dumpster by choice, but there are some who search for treasures in the trash.

BYU student Kellee Cook, an advertising student from Provo, along with her friends, have a different motivation for dumpster diving — doughnuts. Cook heard a rumor that Krispy Kreme does not sell its day-old donuts and its dumpsters were a great place to forage for perfectly good doughnuts. Over Christmas break, she and a few friends pulled several white trash bags filled with boxes and boxes of sealed doughnuts out of a dumpster. They pulled the boxes out, got in their getaway car and sped off into the night. Each one of them made off with a couple weeks worth of donuts.

Jared Whittle, a manufacturing engineering student from Orem, didn’t even have to get in the dumpster to find treasures. The piece of furniture that people comment on most when they enter his apartment is a lamp that was rescued from a dumpster at a previous apartment complex. Whittle was even able to make money off a dumpster find. A working 32” TV was left outside a dumpster at the end of the semester and he was able to sell it on Craigslist for $100.

The most devoted dumpster divers are a group called Freegans. According to the Web site freegan.info, “Freegans are people who employ alternative strategies for living based on limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources. Freegans embrace community, generosity, social concern, freedom, cooperation and sharing in opposition to a society based on materialism, moral apathy, competition, conformity and greed.”

Groups of healthy-looking young people going through dumpsters behind grocery stores are possibly Freegan. They eat food and collect goods that have been thrown away. They avoid purchasing anything, if at all possible.

A Freegan finds food that has passed its use-by-date from dumpsters or bins outside supermarkets, fast food outlets, bakeries and farmers’ markets.

“We live in an incredibly wasteful society,” said Tristan Call, a recent BYU graduate and practicing Freegan. “Anyone who has ever peeked into the dumpster behind a craft store, a restaurant, a bookshop, or a construction site knows that we are throwing away enormous volumes of perfectly usable products every day — many of which were never necessary to produce in the first place.”

“Those of us who eat the delicious and healthy meals that others toss, wear the brand-new (or used) shoes and pants and shirts we found in rubbish bins, and build and decorate our bikes, homes, and gardens with materials that would otherwise have been trucked out to landfills, are doing our part to make up for the waste of our neighbors,” Call said.

Provo resident Liz Wilcken prefers to get and get rid of things before they reach the dumpster. She is an active member of the Provo Group of Freecycle.org. According to its Web site, the Freecycle Network is made up of 4,749 groups with 6,737,556 members all over the world. It is a nonprofit movement of people who give (and get) stuff for free in their own towns, thus keeping good stuff out of landfills.

She first learned about it from a friend’s blog. Through Freecycle she has been able to get dolls and My Little Ponies for her daughter.

“I don’t really look to pick-up, Wilcken said. “I’m a minimalist and would rather get rid of junk.”

She said she has learned that one man’s junk is another man’s treasure.

“It’s also great to know I’m helping keep things out of landfills without really trying or even helping families in greater need,” she said. “I also love that I don’t have to drive my stuff somewhere — instead, the people flock to me!”

Treasure hunters should beware. Officer Campbell of the Provo Police Department said whether or not dumpster diving is allowed depends on where the dumpster is located. If it is on private property, it is off limits. If it is on public property, such as a street, the contents are fair game.