The Scavenger's Manifesto: Why Dumpster Diving Can Save You from Going Off the Deep End

By Anneli Rufus, AlterNet. Posted March 21, 2009.

The goal of scavenomics is not simply to focus attention on this missing step of the economic cycle, but to minimize the time frame and energy expenditure of that step. So, from a scavenomics point of view, waste disposal is the least desirable and least efficient behavior, because the raw materials contained in the trash become lost to us for an extremely long time. Recycling is one step better, because the aluminum molecules or cellulose fibers are reintroduced into the human ecosystem as raw materials fairly rapidly, with a moderate amount of energy expended. But scavenging is the gold standard of economic  efficiency, or at least of this part of the economic cycle. Because when anything that is unwanted and discarded gets scavenged and re-used or re-purposed, it immediately re-enters the global economy with practically no energy expenditure at all. It doesn't need sit around for a million years turning to rust or topsoil. It doesn't need to be shipped to China and melted down and recast as ingots and then shipped to a factory and turned into a simulacrum of whatever it was in the first place, to be then transported to other continents in pollution-spewing ships, trucks, trains and planes. Without having to travel anywhere, or use any energy, the scavenged object once again becomes useful to humankind, without any processing or time-wastage whatsoever. You can't get more efficient than that.

When you scavenge, you absorb other people's pollution as would a sponge. Not only do you lower your carbon footprint, but you also consume less and thus lower your "economic footprint." When you reuse or recycle other people's trash, you decrease their economic footprint as well. It's nice to help strangers.

But scavenging is work. Getting stuff, getting enough stuff to survive or to even call yourself a scavenger requires discipline. Skills. Special knowledge, as does any other profession or sport — and scavenging is both.

First, see. Scan every surface, every crevice of every landscape for telltale colors, shapes and signs that literally or figuratively say: TAKE ME. Scavengers sleep with eyes half-open. For us, this is basic math: The more you see, the more you save. Observe, retrieve.

Experiment. Forever ask: What's this? A public trained to demand brand-new brand-name products is a public drained of curiosity. Consumers are brainwashed to replicate the same exact sensations time after time as if that was happiness. They do not wonder how another product by another brand might taste or feel or what would happen if I went without this? In consumer culture, such thoughts are anathema. Enough such thoughts would smash the system. Industries bank on incuriosity.

Accept. Taking what comes, scavengers tolerate what comes. You've never worn a poncho or listened to Turkish techno music? If that's what you've found, that's what you do. For us, diversity is a necessity.

Each act of scavenging is one step out of safe, clean, streamlined social normalcy. We take trash home. Thus we must overcome some primal instincts, drilled into us all our lives. First we must overcome our fear of misbehavior, those imaginary angry-mommy slaps on our hands, angry-mommy voices in our heads hissing Don't steal, because scavengers are not stealing — the first Scavenging Commandment is Thou shalt not take what rightfully belongs to someone else. Then we must drown out Angry Mommy snapping Don't touch that, it's dirty, because yes, it is, but it won't kill me and I want it and I'm grown-up now. Most scavengeables are not clean or perfect when we find them. Some are dirty, just as Mommy warned, and they're dinged-up or scuffed or past their sell-by dates. So we must overcome another reflex, the age-old terror of contagion, once legitimate but now unwarranted in an era of hot water and antibacterial soap. I can wash this, and I can wash myself after taking it home. Until that washing, we must tolerate the presence of this unclean, damaged thing in our hands, pockets, purses, backpacks, cars.

Collecting castoffs keeps us humble.

Watching, waiting, going with the flow means scavengers are accidental Taoists.

So is this religion?

Well —

How do you define religion? As a source of values? Check. Source of hope? Check. Source of compassion? Check. Compassion in the sense that we cannot help but wonder about those former owners: Who were they? How and why did they part with this? On purpose or not? If so, in anger or in apathy? Did they regret it afterwards? Where are they now — happy or sad, alive or dead?

See more stories tagged with: trash, scavenging, anneli rufus, kristan lawson

Anneli Rufus is the author of several books, most recently The Scavenger's Manifesto (Tarcher Press, 2009). Read more of Anneli's writings on scavenging at scavenging.wordpress.com.

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