I remember as a child going to the dump with friends to find old comic books.  What a treasure they were!  My mother put a stop to that when she found out. She did not think the dump was a wholesome place for children to be.

Most of us hope to find treasures, don’t we?  Laura Pritchett is no different.  Ms Pritchett  is a “dumpster diver” from way back.  She states in the preface to her book “Going Green: True Tales from Gleaners, Scavengers, and Dumpster Divers” that one of her earliest memories is of dumpster diving with her brothers. One of her older brothers stood beside her in the dumpster and showed her the ropes: “…watch out for glass, stay away from diapers, duck if a car drives by, smile cute if the cops come.”

 “Going Green” is a collection of essays in which twenty people discuss their personal stories of “gleaning” from dumpsters, eating road kill, salvaging plastic from the beach, the thrill of yard sales and flea markets and much more. 

In the essay “Intimmensity” Eliza Murphy discusses the impact of plastic waste on our oceans.  She begins by telling of a walk along an Oregon beach, in which she counted thirteen dead birds.  The birds died from ingesting pieces of plastic, washed up by ocean waves.  The indigestible plastic filled their bellies and blocked bodily exits, leaving the birds feeling full.  They died either from starvation or dehydration.  In the Pacific Ocean a gigantic mass of plastic, estimated to be twice as large as the state of Texas, churns. According to scientific estimates, it would take more than five hundred years for this plastic to break down.

In “Blacktop Cuisine” Michael Engelhard writes about his friend Bart, who supplements the family diet with road kill.  Once while driving through Kansas, four raccoons tied to the top of his car began to thaw.  Blood dripped down his windshield.  Laws about road kill differ from state to state.  When Bart discovered that gathering road kill for food was not legal in Kansas, he hurriedly returned to Colorado.

Alaska has road kill coordinators. They manage lists of mostly non-profit organizations, which request road kill. Trains and vehicles kill approximately 820 moose each year in Alaska. When notified of a kill, beneficiaries have thirty minutes to respond to a call for salvage meat, or it goes to the next group on the list.

In “Of Rags and Bags” Libby James discusses her love affair with compost. She enjoys depositing food scraps in a corner of her yard and watching them turn into a nutritious addition to her garden with the help of worms and other parasites.  She is a minimalist who has a red nylon windbreaker that is 57 years old.  Libby understands, however, that many of us just can not dispose of gifts from friends.  I have this problem. I hung onto some wedding presents, which I had never used for over 25 years.

My sister tends to be a minimalist to—at least with my possessions.  The last time Roger and I moved, she badgered me relentlessly until I took a box of my “gift mugs” to Goodwill.  However, she also has a dumpster diving side.  Several years ago, while we were helping her move from an apartment to a townhouse in Fort Collins, she picked two huge plants out of a dumpster and moved them.  Later, when she wanted to go back and get a lamp out of the same dumpster, I put my foot down. “I will move your junk,” I declared, ”but not someone else’s junk!”

“Going Green” is a fun study of the ways people glean.  It also comments on our “throw away” culture, and what it says about us.  I am not much of a yard sale person but maybe I should be.

:: Go to Library Home ::

Scottsbluff Public Library :: 1809 Third Avenue :: Scottsbluff, NE 69361 :: 308-630-6250