After the most recent Tour of Beauty (organised as part of ChangeX), we met in the park for a screening of The Gleaners and I.
(Thanks to Redfern Outdoor Cinema for putting this on).

Ross, one of the speakers on our Tour, got yakkin with Maddy from ChangeX about urban gleaning and dumpster diving. Always a font of useful resources, Ross has forwarded us this fascinating recent article about “Skip Dipping”.

Below is the article abstract.
You can download the whole article from the Australia Institute, here:
http://tai.org.au/Publications_Files/Papers&Sub_Files/SKIP%20DIPPING%20WEBPAPER.pdf

SKIP DIPPING IN AUSTRALIA
by Emma Rush
The Australia Institute

A small but growing group of well-educated urban dwellers, often in well-paying jobs, is challenging the socially-sanctioned revulsion around waste by engaging in ‘skip dipping’: sorting through the contents of publicly located skips for items which are still useful. They talk about this practice as a personal and political response to the mountains of good quality items thrown out as waste each year in Australia. This report gives an insight into the experiences and motivations of skip dippers in Australia.

In this paper, when referring to Australian practice, the authors have chosen to use the term ‘skip dipping’ for its distinctively Australian sound in the context of an international movement. When discussing the practice elsewhere, they have chosen to use the term ‘urban gleaning’ with its traditional connotation of sorting through the chaff to find leftover grains.

Decades ago, thrifty practices were inspired by need and a lack of available resources. These days, the practice of finding treasure in trash is being reinvented in an entirely new context: so much is now available that perfectly good items are being thrown out on a regular basis. Skip dipping is distinguished from earlier thrifty practices by the fact that its adherents do not simply object to waste, but clearly identify this waste as the product of a consumer society. Skip dippers draw attention to the environmentally damaging results of so much waste, as well as its unethical dimension in the context of pressing human need elsewhere.

But like the earlier generation of scavengers, skip dippers gain significant pleasure from their practice, proving that it’s perfectly possible to have fun while making a political point.

Click on the link:
http://tai.org.au/Publications_Files/Papers&Sub_Files/SKIP%20DIPPING%20WEBPAPER.pdf to download Skip-Dipping in Australia from the Australia Institute’s website

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