1. Investigate Kalle Lasn’s Adbusters magazine, Buy Nothing Day, and for the cautious, a simplified version of this list. 2. Start becoming a culture jammer. 3. First, read those things that subvert the norm, yet are wildly popular: The Onion, No Logo, Affluenza, Fast Food Nation, you know the rest. 4. Live in a co-op. 5. Donate your car. 6 Donate your television. 7. Donate anything else that you need to get rid of. 8. Find a nice, used bicycle. 9. Learn how to repair it from Sheldon “Fixit” Brown. 10. Quit your goddamn job!

11. People throw away everything - time to start picking up what they left behind. Go to Goodwill. 12. Or the Salvation Army. 13. (Sigh) Now there’s Thrifty Planet. 14. Thrift Score 15. Check the yellow pages for God’s sake. 17. Find a local garage sale. 18. Or flea market. 19. There’s the Frugal Living newsgroup if you need tips. 20. Clothes, dishes, furniture: try to get them all used. For more hard information on what you have on, see Behind the Label. 21. Re-sell on eBay. 22. Anything can sell. See Who Would Buy That? 23. Understand the nuts and bolts of recycling: Recycling Today magazine. 24. And Resource Recycling. 25. The GrassRoots Recycling Network 26. Zero Waste! 27. What can be recycled? 28. Recycle all your leftover scrap metal. 29. Batteries. 30. Your wood. 31. Old tires! 32. CDs! 33. Glass! 34. Fluorescent lighting ballasts! 35. Find out how a paper mill works. 36. Repackaging others’ junk can be your business, like Copnick’s. 37. Understand who you’re up against. 38. And that some cranks don’t agree.

39. Subscribe to Found Magazine. 40. Find out more about people by reading their discarded letters. 41. Or viewing Photos That Time Forgot. 42. Or examining their artwork at the Royal Journal. 43. Take pictures of what you dig up.

Intermediate

44. It’s time for everyone to know a little more about sewage in your neighborhood. 45. And sewage treatment. 46. Try to memorize all you can about toilet paper. 47. Familiarize oneself with the History of Toilets. 48. And what is and what is not biodegradable. 49. Read The History of Shit, French theory-style. 50. And Plumbing, edited by Daniel Friedman and Nadir Lahiji, a collection of essays on pipes, hygiene, architecture, and the multiple meanings therein. 51. The Department of Health can teach you how to dispose of human waste. 52. So, buy a Port-O-Potty. 53. And a trowel.

54. Sidestep the supermarket by becoming an organic farmer. 55. Get a copy of the Farmer’s Almanac. 56. Take a course in farm subsidies from the Environmental Working Group. 57. Know your local pollutants, and your polluters - take Los Angeles, for instance. 59. Michael Olson of MetroFarm Online can help you learn how to grow crops on a small piece of land and survive. 60. Or visit The Sustainable Farmstead. 61. Where does your food come from? 62. How about your yard? Check out the vegetable gardening guru. 63. Need a scythe? 64. For variety, try drying your food. 65. Check the facts on fertilizer it’s in everything. 66. Including rocket fuel, which is showing up in the agriculture of 17 states! 67. Watch The Gleaners and I by Agnes Varda the most inspiring film about “ground founds” and creative re-use in history. 68. For a more cynical take on recycled culture, try Godard’s Weekend, subtitled “a film found in a dump”.

69. Since the soil is filled with perchlorate, let’s find out about compost. 70. Here’s the Compost Resource Page. 71. And here’s what the EPA has to say about composting particularly in Composting, Yard Trimmings, and Municipal Solid Waste. 72. How about the US Composting Council? 73. There’s backyard composting, and there’s vermiculture - composting with worms. 74. Hop on the Compost Chat Room. 75. Dump out your old coffee. 76. But sit back with a cup of Compost Tea.

77. If you’re not farming, it’s time to learn how to dumpster dive. 78. Separate the truths from the myths at AllThingsFrugal. 79. If you don’t want to go alone, there’s the International Dumpster Diving Meetup Day website to help! 80. Chat with fellow divers at alt.dumpster. 81. Here’s another group. 82. There’s John Hoffman’s classic of the genre: The Art and Science of Dumpster Diving. 83. Anita Sands Hernandez has a ton of wonderful tips, especially if you still harbor doubts. 84. Or, warm up with curbside diving first. 85. What’s legal and what’s not? 86. Here’s some classic finds. 87. There’s Waste and Want, by Susan Strasser “A Social History of Trash” 88. And there’s WasteAge.com, the online journal for waste management professionals and garbage collectors. 89. Learn how to forage for food. 90. Foraging for wild food at the School of Self-Reliance. 91. Great uses and recipes for dandelions, wild mint, and chamomile.

92. It’s time to start squatting. 93. The UK resource, and probably the best. 94. Including Squatting: The Real Story. 95. The Live Journal. 96. A vast history and archive about squatting. 97. Discover the history and roots of squatting by meeting a hobo. 98. Learn hobo signs. 99. Begin to travel, courtesy of Hobo Traveler. 100. Harry Partch was a hobo. 101. So were both Jack London and Clark Gable. 102. The hobo lifestyle is alive and thriving at hobo.com.

103. By now, you’ve pooled your cash and bought a used metal detector. 104. How do metal detectors work? 105. Some people call it treasure hunting. 106. Dirty Knees is a helpful resource. 107. What could you find? Ask Tom. 108. Try Robert Sickler’s book Detectorist. 109. Gold? Yep. 110. You’ll definitely need some fine digging tools from Predator. 111. And a pair of strong headphones made especially for detectorists. 112. Maps! 113. Get a head start on competition by metal detecting underwater. 114. Of course you can visit the good folks at alt.treasure.hunting. 115. Once you join a group, the next step is the Federation of Metal Detecting and Archaeological Clubs, Inc. 116. Or hang out at the National Council For Metal Detecting.

Advanced

117. Prepare to enter the world of parasites, masters of re-use, scavenging, and surviving on what is left over. 118. Check out the lac bug and its secretions. 119. Or the remora, the shark sucker. 120. An essay on the paleo-origins of scavenging. 121. Sit in on a Parasitology course. 122. The United States National Mite Collection, brought to you by the US Department of Agriculture. 123. Parasitism: The Diversity and Ecology of Animal Parasites, from Cambridge University Press. 124. View a collection of parasite photos.

125. Find it in the ground - it’s time for archaeology. 126. Try your luck on the Archaeological Fieldwork Opportunities Server. 127. Cover yourself in archaeological gear. 128. Head to your local National Park. 129. Or the beaches of Newfoundland. 130. Discover the lost peoples of Poverty Point in Louisiana. 131. Or the ancient, oasis-living Garamentes peoples of the Libyan Sahara. 132. Track down ancient earthenware in Fukui Cave in Japan. 133. Read about the Frozen Tombs of Siberia, and the 2000-year-old burial site of tattooed Scythian warriors. 134. Ancient Troy! 135. Magan! 136. Ancient Ruhuna! 137. Megaliths in Orkney! 138. Resurrect a ship! 139. Here’s a bibliography that covers articles on looting. 140. Find out how old your stuff is at Radiocarbon WEB-info.

141. If city squatting gets irksome, you could live in a cave (but not in Arizona). 142. If you need to travel, get some advice on train hopping with Fred. 143. Get a railroad map. 144. Learn the lingo. 145. Pick up Hopping Freight Trains In America by Duffy Littlejohn. 146. Though it is illegal, so don’t say we didn’t warn you.

147. Find water the old fashioned way: from divination, rhabdomancy, or dowsing, the next jump forward from metal detecting. 148. An introduction to dowsing from John McGowan. 149. Try Lesson One with an L-Rod. 150. Pick up a nice L-Rod from the American Society of Dowsers store. 151. Then move on to the pendulum, the bobber, and finally, Device-Less dowsing, 152. A well-written reference is Dowsing for Beginners by Richard Webster. 153. Or the Dowsing Dictionary by Janice Baylis and Adrian Bartlow. 154. T. C. Lethbridge was a dowser. 155. Find lost people, like Noreen Renier, the Psychic Detective. 156. Find lost pets like Hilary Renaissance, the Animal Communicator. 157. Find the Finder of Lost Loves.

158. Devote yourself to the ultimate act of recycling: necromancy, or raising the dead. 159. Communing With the Spirits by Michael Coleman should get you off the ground. 160. Know your plant life. 161. Neuromancy and the masons. 162. The Resurrectionists. 162. Or simply settle for reincarnation, in its varied forms. 163. Articles to read before you’re reimbodied. 164. And to prepare for finality, here’s a torrent of information on cemeteries.

165. Find anything. 166. Find nothing.

Jonathan Ward

Abandon Material Culture in 166 Steps

Beginners

Intermediate

Advanced