Going Green: True Tales from Gleaners, Scavengers, and Dumpster Divers [Paperback]

Laura Pritchett (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 15, 2009

Never mind the Ph.D. and middle-class trappings—Laura Pritchett is a Dumpster diver and proud of it. Ever since she was old enough to navigate the contents of a metal bin, she has reveled in the treasures found in other people’s cast-offs.

For Going Green, Pritchett has gathered the work of more than twenty writers to tell their personal stories of Dumpster diving, eating road kill, salvaging plastic from the beach, and forgoing another trip to the mall for the thrill of bargain hunting at yard sales and flea markets. These stories look not just at the many ways people glean but also at the larger, thornier issues dealing with what re-using—or not—says about our culture and priorities.

The essayists speak to the joys of going beyond the norm to save old houses, old dishwater, old cultures, old Popsicle sticks, and old friendships—and turning them into something new. Some write about gleaning as a means of survival, while others see the practice as a rejection of consumerism or as a way of treading lightly on the earth.

Brimming with practical and creative new ways to think about recycling, this collection invites you to dive in and find your own way of going green.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this uneven essay collection, writers living mostly in the Pacific Northwest and the wide open spaces of Colorado, Wyoming and Montana chronicle their personal experiences of gleaning—living, partially or completely, off the things others have thrown away. Far from merely going green, the contributors are proud dumpster divers, yard sale fanatics and foragers for road kill who ably defend gleaning as a rejection of consumerism. The writers pose provocative questions about the taboo against reusing castoff goods in Western societies and why environmental consciousness is so closely linked with buying green products rather than reusing castoff goods; this practice many Americans dismiss as unseemly, unhygienic, even white trash, as the editor notes, opens a much needed discussion on the environmental movement's class issues that is unfortunately never satisfyingly explored. While heartfelt and sincere, the essays vary in quality; several are too raw to make a compelling argument. And the contributors' mix of sanctimony and guilt (some even feel guilty about sanctimoniousness) might be more off-putting than inspiring. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

When readers are weary or leery of environmental books full of data and doom, they can turn to novelist Pritchett’s spiky collection of personal essays about going green the old-fashioned way. Thrift used to be the guiding principle in nearly every household. Clothes, jars, bags, string—everything had multiple lives. But with the rise of consumerism, household ecology was largely abandoned. Not so for Pritchett, who, from childhood, has been an avid alley cruiser and Dumpster diver, finding treasures in trash. Proud of her gleaning ways, and certain that reclamation and recycling are essential practices in this time of bursting landfills and oceanic trash islands, she invited fellow garbage-pickers to share their views of the waste-not, want-not life, and the result is a lively and provocative assemblage. Kathy Lynn Harris pays tribute to her tough rancher grandmother, the queen of reuse. Eliza Murphy’s beachcombing essay reveals the terrible truth about the marine plastic plague.Others share stories of flea markets, garage sales, and roadkill. These tales from the scavenging front are unexpectedly philosophical, confiding, funny, and affecting. --Donna Seaman

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press (May 15, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0806140135
• ISBN-13: 978-0806140131
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #553,715 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reminds you about the THRILL of re-using!, May 13, 2009

By 

Laura Resau (Colorado) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Going Green: True Tales from Gleaners, Scavengers, and Dumpster Divers (Paperback)

I love this book! It's full of fun, fascinating ways that people incorporate gleaning into their lives. The essays are wonderfully written -- they made me laugh and smile and feel inspired. Best of all, they reminded me of the magical, childlike thrill you get when you discover forgotten or discarded treasures-- or find wildly creative new uses for something like used teabags. The essays also bring you deeper into the issue of how much waste our society creates-- and give you lots of great information to think about and discuss. This book has sparked wonderful conversations between my husband and me-- and the way we interact with all the "stuff" in our lives has changed! For one thing, our trash can fills up much less quickly now...

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars It affects us all on so many different levels, February 12, 2011

By 

Frank Roettgers "Author of Going Green Together" (Frankfurt, Germany) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Going Green: True Tales from Gleaners, Scavengers, and Dumpster Divers (Paperback)

When I read "going green" I immediately think about companies trying to jump onto the green train and restructuring their daily business processes to be more environmental friendly and improve their triple bottom line. However, "going green" is not a term anymore that is strictly used in an economical context. Quite the opposite is the case. Simply because individuals woke up and realized that the current way of doing business, living our lives, and the way we treat the world we are all living in is not sustainable, this mindset made it into the economy and changed entire business models. I even want to go a step further and say that this new mindset will lead us into a new economic paradigm.

The collection of articles in "Going Green: True Tales from Gleaners, Scavengers, and Dumpster Divers" gives us a foretaste of what people are willing to do and how they are willing to change their lifestyle to make a difference. Ok, some might only do it to save money, but if I understand it right, a majority simply does it to protest against the unnecessary and wasteful ways of shops and businesses. A good book to get insights into how more and more mindsets are about to change.

- Frank Roettgers, author of Going Green Together - How to Align Employees with Green Strategies

5.0 out of 5 stars love these tales of gleaning....., June 4, 2009

By 

Selina Seet (Burbank, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Going Green: True Tales from Gleaners, Scavengers, and Dumpster Divers (Paperback)

Gleaning tales! Gleaning from refuse, people, relatives, rich people. Stories full of emotion and desire to do better for the world. Change your life and read this!