Giving garbage-picking and dumpster diving a new name and claiming it’s the new hip thing is probably not a good sign.

Have you ever been tempted to grab a stylish, forsaken chair or couch off of the curb and make it your own? “That’d look better in my living room than wasting away in a dumpster,” you might think.

You’re not alone. Stooping is a rising trend across North America, and it benefits everyone — people with too much stuff, people with too little, and everyone who seeks to waste as little as possible.

“Stooping is the sourcing of free items left out on the street as trash, or sourcing of items that have been left out in the hopes that they will be stooped by a stooper,” as The Sorry Girls explain in an Instagram reel.

In this context, “stooper” doesn’t refer to someone with bad posture or a lowered moral code, as traditional definitions of the word may suggest — instead, it’s someone who reclaims items on the street that have been discarded from their previous homes. It’s a win-win transaction that’s entirely free of charge.

WHAT IS STOOPING? THE MONEY-SAVING PRACTICE IS TAKING SOCIAL MEDIA BY STORM (TCD)