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...

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…