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in America.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:2: n. pag. © American Folklore Society 2017

Review of:

Freegans: Diving into the Wealth of Food Waste 
in America
Alex V. Barnard. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 
2016. Pp. 294, index.

By: Kylie Schroeder

Amid the rising interest in where and how food is produced—and the 
correlating increased availability of organic, local, and ethical goods—
Alex V. Barnard’s ethnography about “freegans,” a faction of anti-capitalist 
counter culture concerned with the excessive surfeit of ex-commodities 
found primarily in the form of food, is both timely and thought-
provoking. Based on personal involvement in the freegan movement and 
ethnographic research from 2007 to 2012, Freegans: Diving into the 
Wealth of Food Waste in America provides a compelling and coherent 
dialogue between participants in the freegan.info community and “scientific 
theories about capitalism, waste, and social movements” (xiii). Barnard 
supplies examples of diverse motivations held by those who self-identify 
as “freegans“ and the actions they take in the name of activism.

Barnard identifies freegans loosely as individuals who reject capitalism 
and strive for alternative strategies of existence, in a system where the best 
options of ethical consumption are considered not good enough. While 
one frequently identified activity associated with freeganism is “collective 
waste reclamation” (dumpster diving) for food (86), Freegans examines 
a number of other ways in which these activists voluntarily limit their 
participation in capitalist society, such as alternative forms of transportation, 
community building, housing, and the procurement and maintenance of 
goods that would have otherwise been wasted as ex-commodities—oftentimes 
indistinguishable from the wares presented for consumer purchase. 



Schroeder, Kylie. 2016. “Review of: Freegans: Diving into the Wealth of Food Waste 
in America.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:2: n. pag. © American Folklore Society 2017

Barnard’s work focuses on participants from the freegan.info community 
based largely in New York, though he offers regional and global examples 
for comparison. While the author readily admits that the book does not 
attempt to represent all freegans, he found the freegan.info group the 
most visible and organized assemblage at the time of his research; the 
group thus provides an opportunity to examine the efforts of individuals 
who are trying to make what can be viewed as a failed system more 
ethical, while attempting to minimize participation in the system. 

While he notes that freegans have received a fair amount of media 
attention, Barnard focuses on the fetish of waste and ex-commodities 
to show how freegans reject ethical consumption. Barnard states that 
his intention was an attempt to create “a piece of journalistic reporting” 
that addresses the “underlying processes that make freeganism 
possible and the issues that drive them to the dumpster” that have been 
absent thus far from discussion surrounding the group’s activities and 
motivations (xiii). He points out that while there has been increased 
general interest in where food comes from, there has been little work 
focused on where it actually ends up. He notes that an astonishing 40 
percent of the food supply in the United States is never consumed (2). 

Freegans opens with “A Brief History of a Tomato,” in which a single salvaged 
item is used to illustrate the shocking statistics of food waste in America, before 
Barnard discusses freeganism and sociological theory. He uses this narrative 
to demonstrate that waste extends far beyond a single tomato, and is in fact a 
reflection of generally unseen “human exploitation and ecological harm” (2). 

Barnard introduces his participants by sharing their stories and histories 
of involvement with different movements and their disenchantment 
with other forms of activism. The initial chapter, “Capitalism’s Cast-
offs,” explores the inception of freeganism and its affiliation with other 
anarchist groups. The author traces the history of the movement while 
situating the group’s ideologies within other political mindsets. The history 
of the group is combined with a history of ex-commodification and the 
sociological implication that capitalism cannot function without waste. 

Barnard then identifies the demographics of the 22 participants (the 



Schroeder, Kylie. 2016. “Review of: Freegans: Diving into the Wealth of Food Waste 
in America.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:2: n. pag. © American Folklore Society 2017

majority of whom are white, middle to upper middle class, college educated, 
childless and unmarried) and explores their motivations for involvement 
in the movement. He provides three major influences: ideologies imparted 
from older family members, childhood rebellion, and personal practices 
involving waste that evolved over time. Barnard then explores the activities 
linked to freeganism and freegans’ intentions to criticize capitalism 
while maintaining minimal involvement in the system itself. The book 
concludes by exploring the diversity of opinions and even some of the 
contradictions that exist within the movement, before discussing the 
decline of the group amidst internal and external backlash and conflict.

Two concepts discussed by Barnard were particularly welcome. First 
was the representation of the most widely-recognized freegan activity, 
dumpster diving, as a scripted performance with specific intentions for 
those involved. This analysis combined participant accounts with the 
author’s observations and offered an interesting look behind the scenes of 
the group’s activities and self-representation. The second was the persuasive 
argument in which Barnard presents freegans’ evidence, challenging 
preconceptions that consumer activism is an efficient way to make a 
change—especially with mass-marketing of “ethical” products that have as 
many negative consequences as the products they are trying to replace. 

Barnard succeeds in writing clearly for non-sociologists and those 
without intimate knowledge of economics, so they can easily digest his 
work. He is not afraid of the contradictions that presented themselves in 
his research, but rather uses them to explore the diverse ideologies and 
practices that the freegan group utilized to work within a flawed system. 

While Freegans is packed full of vivid and engaging discussion, I would like to 
have seen stronger emphasis on freegan activities outside of the reclamation of 
edible waste. Perhaps the constant return to dumpster diving and trash tours’ 
emphasis on food intentionally reflects the most widely recognized aspect of the 
movement and the activity that caught many members’ attention. It seemed that 
there could be enough evidence for greater discussion of the non-edible aspects 
of the movement such as housing, transportation, and clothing, for example.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in activism, modern 



Schroeder, Kylie. 2016. “Review of: Freegans: Diving into the Wealth of Food Waste 
in America.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:2: n. pag. © American Folklore Society 2017

anarchist foodways, and the politics of waste, and even to people who wish 
to become more aware of the shortcomings of the capitalist consumer 
system that many take for granted. This book was both enjoyable and eye-
opening, and will definitely encourage readers to take a second look at 
their daily environments with new (and perhaps necessary) perspective. 


