Cassia Busch
Mrs. Parkinson
English III
April 5 2016

     In On Dumpster Diving, Eighner writes of his days of dumpster diving, or scavenging, in this article. Most people think of dumpster diving as disgusting and the scavengers as even more so, however, Eighner writes in a way to remove the stigma of those people who scavenge to stay alive. He does this by explaining the logic of dumpster diving. In his article, he simply "teaches" the readers how to and what it means to scavenge. He makes the audience realize that the scavengers do this to stay alive not because they want to when he writes "At first the new scavenger is filled with disgust and self-loathing. He is ashamed of being seen," (Eighner 718). This helps remove the stigma of people who dumpster dive because we realize that they are just like us but they have an unfortunate situation. He also removes stigma when he goes through his thought process and mental planning of when he finds food for example when he talks about the three things you have to consider "Using the senses and common sense to evaluate the condition of the found materials, knowing the dumpsters of a given area and checking them regularly, and seeking always to answer the question 'Why was this discarded?'" (Eighner 714). Through these processes and by making the audience take a step back and think about the scavenger and what they actually think about when they dive, Eighner helps remove the stigma or disgrace previously given to poor people that dumpster dive to stay alive.