On Dumpster Diving Summary

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In his essay, “On Dumpster Diving”, Lars Eighner describes his three years homeless with his dog Lizbeth, surviving off stuff he scavenged from dumpsters. In it he describes his methods for finding edible food and what he looks for to make sure the food is safe to consume and unspoiled. One of the topics he brings up is how a lot of what he finds is from dumpsters near college campuses due to how careless and wasteful he perceives college students to be with their food and other belongings. While some of his criticisms are valid towards a small portion of college students, it is unfair to ascribe these behaviors to all students in general. A majority would agree with his criticisms and be amazed to learn how much is wasted. It is important to differentiate between the type of college student that is the target of Eighner’s criticism in his essay and the average college student. Eighner mentions here how he specifically targeted areas that he knew affluent college students lived in and would be bountiful to scavenge from: …show more content…

I am not here by chance; the Dumpsters in this area are very rich. Students throw out many good things, including food. In particular they tend to throw everything out when they move at the end of a semester, before and after breaks, and around midterm when many of them despair of college. So I find it advantageous to keep an eye on the academic calendar. (Eighner 89)
These are the types of students that Eighner has had experiences with and based his criticisms on, affluent students who, as Eighner describes, lived off their parent’s money and have no regard for the stuff they needlessly waste due to not having to pay for it on their own so they develop no sense of value and appreciation for what they throw

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