freegan

The word "freegan" was originally coined as a joke.

Six years later, a pamphlet called "Why Freegan?" turned the joke into a manifesto, defining freeganism as "an anti-consumeristic ethic about eating" and the "ultimate boycott."

Walker and co-founder Joe Green, a tech entrepreneur in the Facebook orbit and big booster of psychedelic research, say they want to create the togetherness of intentional communities like co-ops, communes, or Burning Man without the anticapitalist politics or freegan cuisine.

So for Jean, who tends to the fridge in Kingsbridge, in the Bronx, community fridge are rooted in the same big-picture ideas that animate their freegan lifestyle: reducing food waste, fighting climate change, rejecting the concept that nutritious food should cost money – any money.

He mourns the loss of a time when people appointed apartments with the discarded lamps and night stands they found on the street, even as a freegan movement thrives in New York despite whatever preferences his own neighbors have for the bland efficiency of West Elm.