Artivism on Mill Road!

Was protesting against the BNP RWB that day.

Oh, very noble of you!
In other news, good work to those acting up against Tesco. Here's for the escalation of attack in defense of our communities. No Tesco!

I used to do my shopping at a local healthfood store and some independent groceries but since losing my job, sad to say, Tescos is cheap enough for me to survive and not have to spend all my dole on food! Pah life sucks.

There is another option to shopping at chainstores if you're on a low income - go Freegan!

By doing this, you not only recycle some of the tons of perfectly edible food that gets chucked out by said chainstores every day of the week, but in so doing you're not giving them your money, which you've just saved to spend on more useful (or interesting) things, like with your friendly local independent businesses.

Yes I do practice what I preach in case you're wondering.

Oh yes, and maybe we should start an item here naming and shaming those stores that deliberately compact or pour noxious chemicals over the otherwise usable food they chuck out, not to mention some of the ridiculous 'security' measures they resort to in their attempts to discourage Freeganism.

Not that any of these dirty deeds works.

Are you taking the piss? The Government stats show unemployment at 2.43 million. So will there be enough food to go around if everyone went freegan.

@freegan

Freeganism is not a solution

i have seen obsession with this "lifestyle" distract numerous activists, it even seems to become a kind of consumer fetishism - not to mention results in people eating all kinds of shit (another pot noodle garnished with Mr Kipling's Chocolate Bollocks anyone? it's out of the bin so it's OK honest!).

The crucial thing is that it distracts activists from implementing REAL SOLUTIONS. "sod the community garden, i can get all the f**king lettuces i want from the skip down the road"... well no you f**king won't when the oil runs out and capitalism collapses mate, you'll probably starve when the bins are empty cos you never bothered to learn where food really comes from...

don't get me wrong - i still dive in to the bins for pragmatic purposes quite often - but i do NOT support promoting it as some kind of a solution by shouting "GO FREEGAN" all over the place.

So if Tesco's doesn't open on Mill Rd, where will you skip, presumably another chain store than er..you don't like. I agree with the above post that moralistic simple lifestyle politics are no solution to complicated problems of poverty, work, the environment etc. Me, I'm sick of being poor. I don't want to consume much more than I already do, but I want to consume more than just survival.

Freegan, your argument is ultimately patronising.

Capitalism is the global economic system of the day. The amount you consume makes more or less no difference, with the individual choice of dropping out only soothing the higher ground morality of a few (sure, do it if you so wish but it won't change the nature of capitalism). Instead of consumption patterns it's actually what you actively do to oppose and eventually devastate this system of complete injustice for all life, with the aspiration of replacing it with new forms to structure resource allocation and adjust to the socialisation of production.
They own and sell what we need and want, unfortunatly en masse we don't have the choice but to consume and part-take (afterall capital is global), but it is from this role that we can turn the tables upon them and it is this we should be working towards, not forming some sort of morality around not paying for things you dislike- but at the end of the day would enjoy.
Be active in your scorn, embrace all you can and fight back.

...agree with a lot of the above.

M&S use a purple dye on the insides of the bag - but it washes off ok.
Tescos all seem to be compactors now.
what do you do about massive padlocks and barbed wire traps? - we (small northern city) are running out of stores.....

(still involved with a few allotments and a permaculture project)

And getting back on topic with regards to relative costs of Tesco vs small stores... Various comparisons between Tesco and local Mill Road stores have been carried out by No Mill Road Tesco activists, and have found that often things are cheaper in the local stores. If you know where to look, you can find your fruit and veg, bread, rice, etc cheaply from the market, ethnic grocers on mill road, and so on. It's not as simple as tesco always being cheaper - it depends on your diet/lifestyle/etc.

I myself am not a freegan but those deriding it are pretty deluded to the sheer amount of waste that is produced in a day let alone a year, having had the displeasure of working for a big chain supermarket the amount of fruit, veg, and other items thrown away was astounding.

A lot of the time things were thrown in the bin simply for being slightly dented, there was nothing actually wrong with the food and it was well within its sell by date. We used to throw away something like 60+ loaves of bread and god knows how much other stuff every single night. All of this stuff was perfectly fine to consume as sell by dates are a load twaddle. I remember the manager even threw an entire crate of bananas away simply because a few of them had speckles on the skin which is perfectly normal.

In the current economic turmoil with workers jobs under threat supermarkets should be forced to make such items of food free to those who need it. The unemployed and elderly cannot be lifted out of poverty if the costs of basic essentials are sapping such a large proportion of their income.

The giants are enforcing hardship upon people in this country through bullying and price regulation, it's time they got a good kicking.

Supermarkets will never give away free food to poor people. They are in the business to sell food to make money. Government will also never force businesses to give away their products for free.

The argument is not about the amount of usable waste that everyday consumer society in the U.K produces, it's about the system that allows that waste to be acceptable. It's not to knock anyone who skips free food and other thrown away stuff but to say that these activities in themselves do not challenge the overall structure of this crappy society.

Of course it matters where you shop not in terms of 'destroying capitalism' but in terms of effecting corporate practices. If freeganism allows people to have more money to spend in 'good businesses' and avoids money going to the 'bad guys' – I'm all for it.

Those that are saying we must buy whatever because it's all just 'lifestyle politics'? Are you going to be shopping on Mill Road Tesco when it opens too? Not doing so would be 'lifestyle politics,' right?

It seems pointless arguing with liberals who fail to understand the points being made above about consumer choice having zero bearing on anti-capitalist politics. All they do is re-iterate some 'good' or 'bad' consumerism as if that in some way will change the world.

Oh yes lets all just sit back and wait for the revolution - that one has really worked! Buying fairtrade for example may not be perfect but the guy in Africa that gets the few pence more certainly would prefer you bought it! Consumer boycotts can get companies to change there policies, look at GM for example. There are provable effects to 'lifestyle politics' it changes things unlike those 'organizing' students for some upcoming up-rising and selling papers. Of course 'lifestyle politics' is not enough on it's own it takes action – from protest to property damage to get the changes we want, but it takes all of it.

Freeganism is not just about being a so-called 'lifestyle choice' - it's also about survival.

How many people on low incomes can actually afford to feed themselves properly given the current prices of food in shops, AND pay their rent, AND pay their other bills AND cloth themselves?

The overall cost of living in Cambridge is one of the highest outside of London, and so any activities/activism which help to reduce those overall costs is very welcome.

There have been many times in the not-so-distant past where I would have starved if it weren't for knowing I can go out most days of the week in the knowledge that some wasteful grocery store will feed me with the perfectly useable food that they've just chucked out.

The irony is that I don't shop in these stores because I can't afford their prices.

And I'm not the only one, as pretty much ALL the people that practice Freeganism are in the same situation as myself - on low incomes trying to balance their books, but also trying to be ethical about it.

I hate to say it, but unfortunataely so-called 'Fairtrade' products tend to cost more than the less scrupulous goods, which means that those of us who like to make more of a difference with our spending are quite literally priced out of the market. However, there are also those of us who do not wish to purchase their goods from the big boys if we can help it, so Freeganism is actually a viable option when presented with this dilemma.

A few years ago I worked for some local fruit farms and the things I saw there really opened my eyes. One evening after a long, hard day of picking, I took a short cut through one of the backlots of the farm to get home, and discovered something that truly changed my world.

I turned a corner to discover several huge mouldering piles (as tall as myself) of perfectly usable fruit just left to rot in the Summer sun. The only 'justification' for this practise is that these fruits are somehow 'not fit for Supermarkets'.

They also sprayed an orchard while we were still picking on it - I could actually taste the chemicals they just sprayed on the other half of the orchard as I was still picking fruit - a soapy flavour. I also saw spent containers of pesticides chucked in drainage ditches right next to the orchards where we worked. This was the 1990s, on the outskirts of Cambridge, so recent local history.

At the time I was young and naiive, but now I wouldn't even consider working in such a place.

To shop at somewhere like Tescos is to continue to literally underwrite these wasteful and dangerous practices - it literally costs the Earth.

I would sooner save a tiny percentage of food from Landfill by doing what I do (and save a little money in the process) than do nothing at all and let that food go to waste.

Oh yes, and if I end up with surplus food, I give it away to friends, and they do the same for me when they get surplusses.

'Lifestyle politics' my arse.

Call it what it is - choosing to make a difference.

As someone once said: "The Revolution starts at home, baby".

Get off your cynical asses and make a difference instead of dismissing those that try as supposedly indulging in 'lifestyle politics'.

In this life things only happen when you MAKE them happen. If you cannot or will not do this, stop whining about other people doing it and start questioning your own motivations and start to ask what positive contributions to the world you can make, lest you wish to be accused of being a sad, cynical old hypocrite.

As for the Mill Road store, it will be picketed, prosecuted and paint bombed until they get the message that THEY'RE NOT WELCOME!!!

Freeganism is not just about being a so-called 'lifestyle choice' - it's also about survival.

How many people on low incomes can actually afford to feed themselves properly given the current prices of food in shops, AND pay their rent, AND pay their other bills AND cloth themselves?

The overall cost of living in Cambridge is one of the highest outside of London, and so any activities/activism which help to reduce those overall costs is very welcome.

There have been many times in the not-so-distant past where I would have starved if it weren't for knowing I can go out most days of the week in the knowledge that some wasteful grocery store will feed me with the perfectly useable food that they've just chucked out.

The irony is that I don't shop in these stores because I can't afford their prices.

And I'm not the only one, as pretty much ALL the people that practice Freeganism are in the same situation as myself - on low incomes trying to balance their books, but also trying to be ethical about it.

I hate to say it, but unfortunataely so-called 'Fairtrade' products tend to cost more than the less scrupulous goods, which means that those of us who like to make more of a difference with our spending are quite literally priced out of the market. However, there are also those of us who do not wish to purchase their goods from the big boys if we can help it, so Freeganism is actually a viable option when presented with this dilemma.

A few years ago I worked for some local fruit farms and the things I saw there really opened my eyes. One evening after a long, hard day of picking, I took a short cut through one of the backlots of the farm to get home, and discovered something that truly changed my world.

I turned a corner to discover several huge mouldering piles (as tall as myself) of perfectly usable fruit just left to rot in the Summer sun. The only 'justification' for this practise is that these fruits are somehow 'not fit for Supermarkets'.

They also sprayed an orchard while we were still picking on it - I could actually taste the chemicals they just sprayed on the other half of the orchard as I was still picking fruit - a soapy flavour. I also saw spent containers of pesticides chucked in drainage ditches right next to the orchards where we worked. This was the 1990s, on the outskirts of Cambridge, so recent local history.

At the time I was young and naiive, but now I wouldn't even consider working in such a place.

To shop at somewhere like Tescos is to continue to literally underwrite these wasteful and dangerous practices - it literally costs the Earth.

I would sooner save a tiny percentage of food from Landfill by doing what I do (and save a little money in the process) than do nothing at all and let that food go to waste.

Oh yes, and if I end up with surplus food, I give it away to friends, and they do the same for me when they get surplusses.

'Lifestyle politics' my arse.

Call it what it is - choosing to make a difference.

As someone once said: "The Revolution starts at home, baby".

Get off your cynical asses and make a difference instead of dismissing those that try as supposedly indulging in 'lifestyle politics'.

In this life things only happen when you MAKE them happen. If you cannot or will not do this, stop whining about other people doing it and start questioning your own motivations and start to ask what positive contributions to the world you can make, lest you wish to be accused of being a sad, cynical old hypocrite.

As for the Mill Road store, it will be picketed, prosecuted and paint bombed until they get the message that THEY'RE NOT WELCOME!!!

I think this divide is best illustrated by Dave from Climate Camp, ACE, Edinburgh students.

He took the Observer Food Magazine on a skip run in Edinburgh to popularise skipping amongst the chattering classes.

Unlike Dave, many poor Edinburgh residents survive on what can be salvaged from your excess. Dave robs food from these people simply to make the practice more soc ially acceptable.

Please, can exploitative wankers like Dave restrain their posturing 'actions' to their own upper classes? The only good thing any public school scum here can do for the rest of us is kill your self and your family. Cunts like you are our main problem, stealing the food from our mouthes just to get your names in the paper.

Kill a rich hippy, save the world.