Freegan fighters
8 FEATURES guardianfeats@src.gla.ac.uk 16th OCTOBER 2007
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T
hey strike in the early the following day,” says Ailsa. “It’s what’s edible," argues Ailsa. recently had head offices begun recently partial to giving away a few
hours, while most of the a great feeling when you manage to "I find it particularly frus- issuing preventative unsold sausage rolls in the mornings
city sleeps; sometimes feed yourself and a group of friends trating when you find measures to combat when they are collected for disposal,
alone, sometimes in without spending a penny, and re- a bin choked with freeganism. but now the delivery driver is explic-
crowds. Anyone could using food that would otherwise just food, only to A moral itly forbidden from giving any food
be a suspect. Put this paper down and be taken to a landfill site. I’ve come discover pulse beats away, on the same health grounds as
have a look at the nearest stranger across many characters in the early that an however, in supermarkets.
– could they be? Meet my new hours – some in suits, some in kilts, employee M&S’s 24- After the Boxing Day Tsunami in
favourite community – Freegans. some curious and some confused or h a s hour stores, 2004, I wrote a long letter my former
You might think that consuming disgusted.” slashed w h i c h employers at Co-op, challenging
waste food lies deep in the preserve However, the Freegan party has open the occasion- the company's wastage policy and
of the impoverished or daring, but recently been busted by a harsher packaging, ally have suggesting that some of the waste
it’s also a rather practical alterna- enforcement of wastage policies. making the expired food be sent over to the worst-off parts in
tive to extortionate weekly shopping Marks & Spencer have begun locking food unusable.” picked up East Asia, or at least be put to some
at Somerfield or Iceland, as many their bins at night, and are known to A super- by the charity other worthwhile use. One of my
Glasgow students have found. open the packaging of waste food, visor from Marks & Rainbow, to points was, “Surely starving people
Supermarket waste bins in partic- to prevent people like Ailsa from Spencers told Guardian be distributed to would appreciate countless loaves of
ular have become free-of-charge taking it. that new health rules had been in the homeless. And Greggs bread and other goods, regardless of
vending machines in the last few “But it’s common sense to know place for a number of years, but only bakery on Byres Road was until their expiry dates, and would rather
years because of the excess amount
Photos by: Luke Winter – dyroxy.com (main); Chris Watt (inset); Jim Wilson (opposite page)
of unsold food and goods thrown
out. Their lids are forced open and
their contents raided nightly by the
munchie-craving. But it doesn’t
stop there. The practice has snow-
balled into a phenomenon known as
‘freeganism’ – and the ethical back-
"I found an Irish
soda bread and a
chocolate swiss roll,
both still sealed in
their packaging."
lash against British supermarkets has
been rattling teacups in head offices
ever since.
The Freegan lifestyle involves
salvaging discarded, expired, yet
unspoiled food from supermarket
waste bins. The food is salvaged, not
only by the homeless or hungry, but
also those making a political state-
ment against the over-disposability of
consumerism.
“To be honest, part of the appeal
is that it has to be done in the cover of
darkness, and it’s a lot more exciting
than your average supermarket
experience,” says Ailsa Kay, 21, a
Glasgow student, who once dabbled
in freeganism. “However, the more
I frequented bins, the more food I
discovered. It made me determined
to undermine huge supermarkets by
using their waste and not spending a
penny more than I really needed to.
“The first time I went I found
an Irish soda bread and a chocolate
swiss roll, both still sealed in their
packaging, and their sell-by date was
