Dumpster Diving

Dumpster Diving Eighner does not really have much impact on my own material values. I understand quite well that I waste things once in a while. The reality is that most people are hoarders, keeping things that they do not have any use for. When I no longer have use for something I will discard it. If that provides an opportunity for dumpster diver, so be it. Once I have given up possession of the item, I no longer care about it.

There is a point in this essay somewhere about people buying things and then throwing them away, yet Eighner makes the same point about many dumpster divers. Not every purchase decision is purely rational, and changing circumstances are affect the outcomes of purchase decisions that were perfectly rational. Take for example the booze, drugs and pornography that he presumes college students discard when their parents are visiting. If his scenario holds true, that does not mean the purchase was wasteful.

The parental visit could have been unknown at the time of purchase, or the consumption of said intoxicants might have been at a slower pace than intended. Yes, this means some of it goes into the bin, but that does not invalidate the logic of the initial purchase. Eighner takes a funny approach to the issue of acquisition of goods. He tells of dumpster divers who accumulate goods, which is the same as what happens with a lot of people.

He almost brags out his ability to limit what he takes only to that which he needs, but he fails to recognize a key difference in that he has no place to put things. His tone suggests that he still has the hoarder instincts, but pragmatic considerations compel him to override those instincts. So in essence, Eighner wants to take a view of superiority about the accumulation of possessions, but given the same income and storage capacity as everybody else, he seems like he would succumb to the same temptations.

My own material values are actually not at all unreasonable. I own relatively few things, and while I do waste I am certain that I waste less than others. But I also do not see the logic in holding onto things I no longer need just so I can feel good about not wasting. In the absence of perfect purchasing, these objectives are in conflict with each other.

Perfect purchasing is basically an unattainable goal, though there are corporations that use immense amounts of data and complex algorithms to get as close to perfect purchasing as possible. Given that I do not have the time nor inclination to embark on a shopping trip twice a day to meet my immediate needs, I do prefer to accumulate some goods in advance, and sometimes this results in waste.

A stronger message would be applied to the businesses that are throwing out perfectly good inventory, rather than finding ways to capitalize on that. The pizza joint was a good case study, because he noted that many of its waste pizzas were simply the result of staff incompetence, a function of having inexperienced, low-paid employees. That is almost excusable, but there is a lot of waste from institutional producers.

Think about what happens to the food at the end of the buffet, or at a hotel, or a stadium at the end of the evening. There is a tremendous amount of waste in our society, much of it institutional. He makes a valuable point about the individual role in this -- slightly imperfect vegetables are thrown out because nobody will buy them -- but how much of this contributes to the problem, and how much is my own personal responsibility, is questionable.

The bit at the end about the gaudy bauble is probably one of the worst parts of the entire essay, quite frankly, other than the indulgent pontificating at the beginning about dictionary definitions. Oh, the mighty pauper will tell us worthless slugs that we are living our lives wrong. That's nothing more than pop pablum, a reactionary response to the scorn he's received over the years from those same rat-racers who so roundly reject his lifestyle. He almost cannot help himself in passing judgment on others he's never met.

But I personally do not have any interest in that narrative -- somebody passing blanket judgment on others he's never met is petty at best, and a straw man at worst. To claim such moral high ground, that his life choices make his superior, is pretty obnoxious. Eighner should have stuck to observation if he wanted to make a salient point. Especially when it consists of a guy who works hard all day to find the means of survival criticizing millions of others who do the exact same thing.

It's not like he found enlightenment under Bodhi tree while fishing through bags of cat litter -- he's just getting by like everyone else. I don't personally relate much to dumpster diving. It's a way of life, he's free to live it. The best use of my energies, in my opinion, is not on the acquisition of the means of survival. I prefer to minimize the amount of time I need to spend on that, because that is what works for me.

Dumpster diving, even when practiced to the level of art form, is inefficient. In that, it is not something I would personally pursue.