Americans are quite wasteful. In fact, according to documentarian and self-professed dumpster diver Jeremy Seifert, we throw away just about half of all of our food. "Every year in the United States we throw away 96 billion pounds of food. That's 263 million pounds a day, 11 million pounds an hour, 3,00 pounds per second!" Seifert writes at Grist. He marvels at the fact that, despite this mountain of unused food, one in eight Americans relies on food stamps. Seifert is a big proponent of dumpster diving, a recent trend that seems to allow people simultaneously to condemn and benefit from wastefulness. The comments section of Seifert's article provides a peek into the debate over whether or not dumpster diving is the right approach to combating wasteful habits.

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Caitlin Dickson