Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Call it what you want - totting, skipping, skip diving, skip salvage, curb shopping, trash picking or street scavenging - dumpster diving is just one of the names in that trash pile of labels. It’s not only a means of survival, but also a “way of life.” The show Extreme Cheapskates on TLC highlights some of the most frugal people in the world, who stop at nothing to save money. Sometimes these people aren’t even poor; they are just very tight penny-pinchers. Creating reusuable toilet paper, reusing dental floss, finding gifts in garbage cans, washing clothes while showering, flushing the toilet only once a week, making their own toothpaste, not spending money on telephones, television or new clothes for their kids is just some of the ludicrous extents people go to to conserve their bank accounts. So I ask you. At what point does extreme frugality become near-dumpster-diving conditions? Just because you don’t throw something away and reuse it, for example toilet paper, is it still considered trash? If a half eaten bagel lowers one centimeter below the top of a trash can, is it considered trash? Reduce, reuse, recycle. This is what we’ve been taught ever since we were children. But by God, when does this endless cycle get straight up too nasty?

And we thought OUR parents were cheapskates...