It was some save the Earth kinda event. EarthFest where they talked about recycling composting etc... didn't really interest me...
But then... there's the SRRFM, Singapore Really Really Free Market...
People who want to pass their stuff on to others, they just go down and drop their stuff on the mats there and anyone can just go up and take the stuff. It's quite an interesting sight.
It's mostly second hand stuff...
There's a whole load of clothes, bags, books, stuff toys, some electronic wires, an EPSON printer, slow cooker, some IKEA lights, etc etc.
I have a thing for bags. They store pretty well, make good generic gifts, most people don't mind getting a second hand one, as compared to clothes, so I got a number of bags and other stuff. It's like dumpster diving but absolutely not frowned upon cos everything is laid out in the open.
I went down for the free stuff and also to lend support to some of the freegans there. They had a couple of booths, a barter trade booth and a vegetable corner.
The barter trade booth was kinda just to showcase, cashless trades. The freegans were basically just giving stuff out for any kind of trade. Like you could give $1 and take anything on the table, or just "Like" the Facebook page and take anything on the table, even helping to take a photograph and they let you take whatever you wanted on the table.
I didn't take anything from the table... generally, I now get stuff for fun, there's no need for anything or want. More so than last time.
So they were like, "Hey ERSG you can take whatever you want!"
And I smiled back and said "No thanks, after joining this group, I have to be careful of what I take, cos, there's just so much stuff available."
And the organizer was like "Yea, now every item, you need to know what you are going to do with it. Do you need it? Do you want to give it away? etc etc. You can't just anyhow grab cos there's just so much stuff."
I was looking at a custom billiard stick and sighed... and he laughed... I suppose he also knows the feeling...
I used to play billiards and it would have been cool to own my own billiard stick, I would have grabbed it in a blink if it was the old me 6 months ago. Even if I had already stopped playing for years, I would likely have just grabbed it.
But things don't work this way anymore. I know I can't hang on to stuff anymore. Items which I don't have use for or don't know who to pass it on to, I just can't take it. Cos it will likely just sit in the storeroom or on the floor and stay there forever.
Many of the more active freegans have ended up like this. They are very careful of what they collect else their homes would be in a mess.
But that's not to say there aren't others who go crazy over all the free stuff and clutter up their homes. Like any other activity, there are people who have taken it to extremes and have gone down the wrong path.
And then there's the "Kampung Picnic" Corner. Where a couple of the freegans were trying to raise awareness about the fruits and vegetables discarded along the supply chain. They explained that they collected fruits and vegetables from the wholesalers at Pasir Panjang wholesale market and the volunteers who collect the vegetables get some of the stuff and the rest of it goes to organizations which run kitchens for the less fortunate. They sent 1.2 tonnes of fruits and vegetables to these organizations on Saturday. These produce would have been fated for the bin if not passed on to others who were willing to accept them.
Below is part of the 1.2 tonnes of fruits and veges.
Pictures grabbed from the Freegan chat
*Daniel if I'm not allowed to use the pictures please just tell me and I'll remove.
Now, I won't lie, these fruits and veges aren't the best produce. They aren't particularly fresh, but they are edible. It's like if you buy a sack of potatoes and you eat some and some you leave it on the shelf for a week, and it might start to get soft... yea, it's something like that. Some people will throw a soft potato, other people will just cut it up and dispose of any ugly parts and just cook the rest of it.
Most if not all of these stuff is like this. I managed to grab half a cabbage, a couple of onions, a yam, an apple and a mango from the nice girls attending to the booth during the event.
There was an interesting incident which I overheard. A wife and husband was talking about the fruits and veges...
The husband was in the position that the produce wasn't fresh.
The wife was saying that, the stuff would have ended up in the bin if not consumed...
They're both are right... the produce isn't the freshest stuff you can find, but they are all edible and free and are fated for the bin. So you pick your choice...
And even more interesting is I realized... that usually, the person who does the cooking is more willing to accept free, but not so fresh produce.
And usually the person who doesn't do the cooking is sticky over the freshness of the stuff.
Reason being... if you do the cooking, you will handle produce like this most of the time... most people do their grocery shopping on weekends and by the end of the week, some of the stuff is wilted and they just work with the stuff. So to people who do the cooking, it's normal.
Anyway... usually, the not so nice bits are around 10%-30% depending on the item. So once those are cut off, it pretty much looks like normal food that we consume.
The rest of EarthFest wasn't so interesting for me... duhz. Most of the other stuff was just the usual flea market stuff but with a more Earth theme to it, so people were selling stuff like any other flea market. Furthermore, the stuff wasn't particularly cheap. But that's usually the case, most of these hippy save the Earth stuff are more expensive than normal. Usually run by idealistic young folks who hope to change the world...
I'm not against it... I just find it expensive so I don't bother too much about it.
Anyway SRRFM happens once every 2 months, so I'll likely try to go again the next time to collect more free stuff.
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