cover image Going Green: True Tales from Gleaners, Scavengers, and Dumpster Divers

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

, . . Univ. of Oklahoma, $19.95 (209pp) ISBN 978-0-8061-4013-1

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)