Another Take on the Can Scroungers
2 July 2003
"My Daily Dives in the Dumpster," a work by Lars Eighner, explains the methods and means by which the author learned to survive by "liv[ing] from the refuse of others." However satirical, this account provides an interesting look at the ethics and mores of the dumpster diving class. While Eighner considers the dumpster divers to be an honorable sort, he also seems to hold a grudge against those he calls "the can scroungers." He is referring to people who sift through waste to find aluminum cans to return for money. These people, he writes, are disrespectful, lazy, and wasteful. Maybe that is his experience dealing with can scroungers. I guess my experience differs.
While working a night security detail at the Wal-Mart in Bangor, Maine, I had the opportunity to observe an older gentleman gathering cans early in the morning. He would stop by this particular Wal-Mart in his green Ford Ranger, intent upon relieving the trash barrels and dumpsters of their cans. I did not see this man "laying waste" to the rest of the trash in his path. As far as I remember, he never disturbed anything in his quest for cans. This seems to contradict Eighner's dealings with the can scroungers.
While it is unfair to assume that all can scroungers are as peaceful and respectful as the gentleman I observed at the Bangor Wal-Mart, it is also quite unfair to label all can scroungers as miscreants, as Eighner has so aptly done. Perhaps this response to his essay is more of a response toward the fallacy of generalizations and the problems that stereotypes develop. The author of "My Daily Dives in the Dumpster" should have realized, being undoubtedly the object of ridicule and stereotyping himself, that such behavior is counter-productive and, quite simply, mean. I imagine that Eighner tried to distance himself from some of the less savory of the dumpster diving set. This does not, however, allow him to defame others by utilizing sweeping generalizations and hurtful stereotypes.