How Society Influences Just imagine all the amazing stuff you could find in other people’s trash. Dumpster Diving is something homeless people do when they want to find food, clothing, and anything else they could use to their advantage. Dumpster diving gave me a horrible impression. I couldn’t contribute to the idea of someone, much less myself, digging or scrounging in another’s dumpster out in the open, touching food and material that could easily lead to deadly diseases. At first, I saw dumpster diving as a disgusting and unsanitary activity, something no one should ever attempt. After reading Lars Eighner’s essay On Dumpster Diving I was shown a different perspective on the idea. This essay has encouraged me, and probably many others,
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Both of them were able to survive off of dumpster diving as their daily food source. Eighner was able to find clothing, shoes, and even sometimes money. Eighner also found many other valuable things such as “Boom Boxes, candles, a virgin male love doll,…books, a typewriter”(773). Eighner soon became an expert on what foods were still good to eat and what places had the best trash. Eighner learned a lot about dumpster diving and gained a lot of experience from it. It turned out to be a great adventure, Eighner’s concluded that if he died Lizbeth would be able to survive off of what she learned about dumpster diving. Eighner gave the readers three principles when trying to eat safely out of a dumpster, one principle was our senses “the common sense to evaluate the condition of the found materials, knowing the dumpsters of a given area”(774). With that advice he added certain foods that he believed to be safe such as yogurt, cheese and canned foods, and various places that seemed to have the best trash like pizza shops because they would always throw away fresh pizza just because of a messed up order, and apartments filled with college students because they would always throw out the best trash during …show more content…
I mean, Lars even gave the reader tips on knowing when and what is still good even after the expiration date. He also mentioned that the best things are usually all the way at the bottom of the dumpster. Eighner also points out the stages of a dumpster diver, from being disgusted with to being addicted to diving. The first stage of a beginner scavenger is “filled with disgust and self-loathing” and the embarrassment of being seen and never getting over the idea that they’re eating garbage (Eighner 777). The second stage is finding great things that could be seen as something very useful to them, then realizing that people throw away great stuff all the time, eventually they see everything as ” every bit of glass may be a diamond,. Gold” soon he won’t be able to tell what’s truly valuable and what’s actually considered garbage
Both of them were able to survive off of dumpster diving as their daily food source. Eighner was able to find clothing, shoes, and even sometimes money. Eighner also found many other valuable things such as “Boom Boxes, candles, a virgin male love doll,…books, a typewriter”(773). Eighner soon became an expert on what foods were still good to eat and what places had the best trash. Eighner learned a lot about dumpster diving and gained a lot of experience from it. It turned out to be a great adventure, Eighner’s concluded that if he died Lizbeth would be able to survive off of what she learned about dumpster diving. Eighner gave the readers three principles when trying to eat safely out of a dumpster, one principle was our senses “the common sense to evaluate the condition of the found materials, knowing the dumpsters of a given area”(774). With that advice he added certain foods that he believed to be safe such as yogurt, cheese and canned foods, and various places that seemed to have the best trash like pizza shops because they would always throw away fresh pizza just because of a messed up order, and apartments filled with college students because they would always throw out the best trash during …show more content…
I mean, Lars even gave the reader tips on knowing when and what is still good even after the expiration date. He also mentioned that the best things are usually all the way at the bottom of the dumpster. Eighner also points out the stages of a dumpster diver, from being disgusted with to being addicted to diving. The first stage of a beginner scavenger is “filled with disgust and self-loathing” and the embarrassment of being seen and never getting over the idea that they’re eating garbage (Eighner 777). The second stage is finding great things that could be seen as something very useful to them, then realizing that people throw away great stuff all the time, eventually they see everything as ” every bit of glass may be a diamond,. Gold” soon he won’t be able to tell what’s truly valuable and what’s actually considered garbage