Dumpster diving
Dec 13th 2006Christop::Activism & ::Lifestyle & ::Culture
When I was a kid at meals my parents always made sure me and my brothers ate everything we were served. They said that we couldn’t chuck out what we didn’t want to eat, because there were starving kids in Africa (and even in our own city) who’d be happy to eat our scraps.
Even though there’s still a lot of parents who teach their kids not to waste food, it’s amazing how much food gets thrown out before it even gets into a kitchen. The way the economy works here is that shops order or produce more food than they reckon they can sell, and then what they can’t sell they just chuck out, even if it’s still good. Throwing unsold food out means they can make more money than if they just gave it away for free, because it keeps the demand for food high.
A few weeks ago, at the G20 protests, I got to know three guys who call themselves freegans. They live in a van and they get most of their food from bins. On Saturday night I went dumpster diving with them. It was amazing seeing how much actually gets wasted. This bin, which we found behind a bakery, was full of stale bread:
From another bin, behind a supermarket, we got a whole heap of lamb cutlets, lamb chops, beef steaks and kangaroo, as well as some capsicums and really big bag of pizza bread.
While we were getting stuff out of the bin two more dumpster divers turned up, so we offered to share what we’d found so far with them, and we all went over to another supermarket up the street. There was an absolutely huge dumpster there and it was amazing how much good food had been thrown out. There was a watermelon, three jackfruit, heaps of potatoes, eggplant… We had to put it all in a shopping trolley.
We used the van to take all the stuff back to the house of the other dumpster divers we’d met to divide up what we’d found, and eat the watermelon together.
When I got home I actually ended up having to chuck out a lot of what I’d ended up with. (I guess at least I was able to chuck it in the compsot bin, and it’s not going to become landfill.) Some of it wasn’t very good, and some of it was stuff that I just can’t make myself eat, like pizza bread (which makes me feel sick because it’s so oily) and a case of pancake mix (which is full of preservatives and artificial flavours). I’d tried to explain to the others that it wasn’t the sort of stuff I’d eat, but they’d kept insisting that I had to take more because we’d gathered so much. But I used some of the capsicums and potatoes in a vegetable stir fry, and I’ve been using some sourdough bread I got as well. There’s still a fair few potatoes left.
Although I though I ended up having to chuck a fair bit of what I got back into the rubbish, I really appreciate that these people are making sure less food goes to waste. I don’t think we can label anything as waste that is part of God’s creation.
On the other hand, dumpster diving doesn’t really address the fact that there is a huge food surplus in this country, while heaps of people overseas are starving. And there’s also the fact that dumspter divers are dependent on people not changing their habits of throwing out good food.
Anyway, that’s some stuff I’ve been thinking about because of this little adventure I had on the weekend.
What do you think? Do you think you could eat food that had been thrown out?
9 Comments »
Trav on 13 Dec 2006 at 8:25 am #
Hello Christop! I read your post about freegans i have a question….their diving into bins is it a result of necessity (it’s the only way they can live) or do they believe that it’s a right and good way to live?
Christop on 13 Dec 2006 at 5:41 pm #
Well, it’s not really the only way they can live. The three guys who took me dumpster diving do it partly so that they don’t have to spend time time working for money, and can spend a lot of their time handing out fliers and talking to people in the street and stuff. There’s a lot of people who do it because their lifestyle choices mean that they don’t have much money available to them.
This particular group also does it because they believe that food getting wasted is bad. A lot of freegans also believe that the current consumer-capitalist economic system is corrupt, so they want to avoid participating in it as much as they can. (This page from Freegan.info has some stuff about why they believe the consumer-capitalist economy is corrupt.)
Trav on 14 Dec 2006 at 9:37 pm #
hmmm interesting Chris, I dont think i can respect their actions if their doing it because they dont want to work…i dont think that’s healthy for society supposing we all got to lazy to work.
i could respect a working freegan better because their not trying to take advantage of society but help it.
And having said all that i dont want to take away from what you’ve said about food being wasted…because i think thats bad too.
Christop on 15 Dec 2006 at 5:42 am #
I wouldn’t say that they’re doing it because they’re to lazy to work. I wouldn’t say that any of the people I hung out with that night were lazy. But the work that they do (eg. conservation, art, activism) isn’t highly valued in our society, and it doesn’t really pay well, if it pays at all.
However, I agree that it wouldn’t be possible for everyone to do it, and I don’t think it really tries to change how the economic system works, it just tries to stop some of the surplus from being wasted.
ARNOLD on 31 Dec 2006 at 12:50 pm #
Damn! Nice to find meat like that! I’m more of a meegan than a freegan…love lamb! My favorite! Tell ya what…I’ll trade ya dozens of assorted donuts for some kangaroo!
Christop on 03 Jan 2007 at 11:09 am #
Sorry Arnold, the kangaroo’s long gone now.
Mathew on 06 Apr 2008 at 9:33 am #
Nice to see other people doing this. Some of these people make me sick. All those homeless and hungry people and they’re just chucking this stuff out into landfill. One of my local supermarkets that I frequent throw things out that are still months ‘in date’. What the hell? I’m interesting in knowing who makes the calls as to what should be thrown out…
Go freegans!
Tessa on 15 May 2008 at 1:45 am #
It’s really cool to see people doing this! I looked at the oprah winfrey show, there were freegans, These are the guys who could save the world, seriously, a big compliment to all the freegans! It has make me think about a lot of thing…
The love is in the people, not in the food!
susan on 08 Dec 2008 at 9:36 pm #
who cares why they’re doing its fun and it stops waste. we do it once a week at west end and always get about 200$ worth of food for the week. we also give it away etc. the best thing i love is finding plants that you can put in the garden and bring them back to life. so rewarding.