Freeganism: The Art of Dumpster Diving

I've seen employees going through pitching veg & fruit at Wild Oats and wondered why on some of it. Parts looked totally fine. One would think they'd at least offer it up to employees first.

Is there any legal issue with digging stuff out of store's trash?

http://couponing.about.com/od/groceryzone/a/food_waste.htm

That would be one source for the mentioned food issue.

It's great that the Freegan group is making use of the inefficiencies of the mainstream food industry.

There's an organization in Dc called "DC Central Kitchen" which receives the leftover food from restaurants and catering events in the city and makes meals for the the shelterless from the food.

When millions of people in the world are food insecure (i.e. they don't know where there next meal will come from), it's sickening to see that Americans are throwing out hundreds of thousands of pounds a perfectly healthy, good food everyday due to lack of interest in it.

I wonder what percentage of this waste is due to "potential liability" risks?

Regardless of the pertentage, waste is wasteful and it needs to be addressed to dramatically reduce or eliminate.

Store pitch soft or over-ripe looking fruit instead of marking it down because they fear it will alienate shoppers, sending them to a competitor. Its like a hornet at a picnic sending the insecti-phobics into a panic. There ought to be a way to donate the past-peak veggies and fruit to charity causes.

Dumpster Diving rocks. I'd recommend going during colder winter months to prevent spoilage. And bring a car and a few friends. You'll need both if you have a good consistent spot.

A friend was fired from a major chain service station because at the end of the night, instead of tearing up the expired sandwiches and dumping them with the cigarette ashes, he placed them carefully beside the dumpster so that the local homeless could eat them. The store's reason? If one of the homeless people eats that and gets sick, they could sue the store.

See our earlier posts on Fallen Fruit Maps and Gleaning for more links and info. The latter is where we quoted the figure of 4% of good food being wasted via dumping.

Damn, they must be in NYC, you don't even have to hop in a dumpster, it's all just nicely laid out on the sidewalk. If there were Trader Joe's there, with everything all individually packaged, it would be paradise. SoCal is the land of trash compactors and dumpster fortresses

My father makes about $1000 a month from what he calls curbside shopping- which is finding trash on the street and selling it in an antique store. He often finds crates full of cans of perfectly eatable food which he gives to families in need. He also finds tampons, disposable contact lenses, soaps, shampoos and anything you can imagine. Last year he found several bottles of organic hair conditionner which I am happily using till now. Lots to be found and enjoyed. We just need to get over our fears of being "caught" in the garbage of someone else.

Hey Michael, This is great! I recently posted a blog on my own experiences of dumpster diving and dumpster diving in China. Check it out:

http://www.nextbillion.net/blogs/2006/06/28/dumpster-diving-in-china

"potential liability" is the excuse used by panera bread years ago. i understand it is real, but how often do you see hungry people out suing everyone? my mother tried to get panera bread in my hometown to donate their day old bread for shelters and they declined. potential liability. people need to eat and the food goes in the garbage. ???

I know that residential waste becomes NYC property when placed on the curb, but I have never heard of it being enforced.
As far as buisness waste, they have to use private haulers, so I don't know.

The source of the 50% figure is Tim Jones of the University of Arizona (see www.freegan.info). We have a Trader Joe's here in NYC, but they're really obnoxious and yell at anyone they see in their trash (and they NEVER totally close).

I was exposed to 'dumpster diving' in the early 1990's when I met some hippie-types in boston at a dead show. I actually found myself taking perfect heads of lettuce out of a dumpster behind some stores in the city of Boston- no one seemed to mind. We brought them back to a 'Rainbow Gathering' in a State park where they were cleaned and cooked. It was an eye opener to see how simply people in the Rainbow Family were living by relying on the massive amounts of unused food that would otherwise be wasted (as well as using the barter system for other goods and services) I'm happy to see it posted here so many years later.

There is a very popular bread bakery dumpster here in Seattle. I often stop there with a bicycle group and we'll all grab a few pieces of bread (I usually end up getting 4-5 pieces). I throw them in my freezer and they'll stay good for at least a week. Some days are better than others, and occasionally you get super fresh bread. Since the dumpster only contains bread, you don't have to worry about the bread touching anything rotten, and if you grab from the middle, it hasn't even touched the side of the dumpster. Everything is packaged, and some of them are actually sealed (like the bagels or mini baguettes).

I can save money and use food that would otherwise go to waste. That's a win-win situation in my opinion.

Hello to all. I am interested in participating in a gathering, however I have never done this before. I live in Boston and will appreciate all suggestions and guides. Thank you.

I find stuff in the Trader Joe dumpster all the time in Cincinnati, OH. I am able to reduce my grocery bill by 1/3 to 1/2 depending on how often I look. I sometimes am able to feed my friend, too

A relative of mine works for an Italian Restaurant chain. At the end of the day, whatever they have prepared that isn't eaten (like entire trays of lasagna) are pitched. It makes me sick. I cannot figure out how to fix it. This is an area that needs a LOT of work.

I guess no one thinks about the fact that "potential liability" issue is real, and there are plenty of ambulance-chasing lawyers (aka sociopaths who found a legal outlet for their reptilian tendencies) waiting to represent the right homeless person willing to sue. If you want to reduce food waste, why not support lawsuit reform? Like so many other ills in our society, restaurant and store owners' reluctance to give away their food can be traced back to our litigious nature and "jackpot justice" mentality in this society. James Howard Kunstler has rightly observed that America has become a "casino" nation with a get-rich mentality. Lawsuit abuse is one very real symptom of this.

thanks for the video...i've been dumpster diving for almost a year now. once you're over the initial disgust, dumpster diving seems like common sense--and i've found that it doesn't have to be a negative relationship with the workers. i can help keep it clean around the dumpster and rescue the food, too.

last december a news team followed me and a friend on one of our dumpster runs. See the video and a short write-up at the link on my name.

The food liability issue is an excuse and a poor one at that because there is a law called the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act. It protect restaurants and markets from lawsuits if anyone gets sick from food they donated.

http://www.sustainablefoodservice.net/cat/food_donation.htm

Many of these large companies don't want to give away old food or let employees take it because they think the workers will start "throwing out" good food so they can take it home. As if there wasn't enough already there for them to take home. Its really joke and goes well beyond grocery stores. Places like Borders throw out thousands of unsold books (with the covers ripped off) and fire any employee who is caught taking these books. They also refuse to donate the books to schools, charities, etc. or even recycle them.

An old roommate who worked at Borders did get authorization (because he was a manager and the GM was cool) to recycle the thrown out books. So every couple months he would borrow my hatchback and fill it to the top with discarded books to take to the recycler. What a waste...

If everyone were freegan, we would all starve and die. The logic behind it is completly delusional.

I used to work for Williams Sonoma when I was first out of college. I was making 8$ and hour living in a major city. I liked my job but I wasn't making enough to live off of, so when the store whould get rid of the free samples that the manufacturer sends then I would take them home. The manager almost fired me over it and it is something I will never forget.

I didn't then and I don't understand now the logic of big chains keeping people from their wastes. Is it really a desire to mitigate liability or do they not want potential custormers getting product for free? Personally I think it is a native miserliness in people and that makes me sad.

"If everyone were freegan, we would all starve and die. The logic behind it is completly delusional."

Paul,

I don't think that anyone is suggesting that dumpstering would provide the sole means of sustenance for society as a whole if everyone chose to eat this way. Also, I don't think the chances of that ever happening are very high.

The point is to cut back on waste and to be more aware of the perfectly useful things that we, as a society, throw out instead of reusing.

It's about opting out of systems that aren't working for the benfit of the earth and the people who live on it, not about feeding everyone.

There is a bigger picture that you seem to be missing, Paul.

A) If I dumpster 1/2 of my food, then that means that 1/2 of my food is not being purchased. This is driving demand down, and as a consequence (if enough people do this) production will also wane.

B) The 21 PERFECT grapefruits that I got from Trader Joe's dumpster cost me NOTHING, and they aren't in a landfill right now... How is this not a positive thing?

Oops!

My previous comment was for Lauren, and not Paul!

Sorry Paul!

My husband works for a local grocery store that offers up the fruits, veggies, frozen goods, baked goods, and everything else that would normally be thrown away to the employees. There have been months where we didn't need to buy groceries.

If everyone were freegan, we'd all starve.

Probably true. There would, after all, be very little waste to live off of.

If everyone trimmed their waste, stopped being greedy and stopped being so habitually profligate that it's not even thought of as wastefulness, there would be enough food to feed everyone.

It's insane. I moved halfway across the country a couple years ago; one of the friends helping me pack up thought I was totally nuts for putting all my canned goods in the truck. She was buying the place from me, and threw a bitch fit because she got there a week before I was ready to leave and the fridge and cupboard were half full, so there was "No place for her to put stuff, and nothing for her to eat."

I note that after 6 months of working full time, she didn't have enough money to keep up with both lot rent and her car payment. Go figure.

Even if you really don't care about anyone else, or the environment, everyone cares about themselves. And, even if you are wealthy enough to soak the loss, profligacy hurts you, too.

I cut our grocery bill by 25%-- and our garbage output by 50%-- just by keeping my fridge and pantry organized and making sure to use leftovers. The garbage reduction was enough to let me cancel our garbage service-- pricey 'cause we're in a rural area-- and pay a la carte to dump it in a local business's Dumpster instead.

Monthly savings, including the bite out of the grocery bill, and accounting for paying the realty office to use their Dumpster: $112.50. With an income of $39K, we're wealthy enough to soak the loss...

...but with the difference, I've been able to make an extra payment on our mortgage every year (which can cut as much as 25% off the term of repayment, saving a further bundle in interest) and ramp our retirement savings up from 10 to 12 percent.

And I have an excuse to stop and say "Hi" to my friend at the office.

No matter what you think of freeganism, just try and tell me you couldn't use another $112.50 a month. Tell me you wouldn't like to save money, especially money that could save you even more money.

Try and tell me we couldn't all use to interact with other members of our community on a more consistent basis!!

I think Freeganism is a wonderful thing and totally fascinating. However, I live in South Africa, and there are so many poor, hungry people who get their food from dumpsters, if we who can afford food now start competing with them, we could be accused of making things worse and not better. Also, unfortunately (or fortunately) stores don't seem to throw that much out here. A rotten tomato here and there, but not boxes of unopened stuff and I think the staff actually do get dibs on items to be thrown away. As a third world country, we are in the position of perhaps not being as wasteful as first world countries.

My husband and I just started "dumpster diving" two weeks ago. We are thrilled at our finds. Just recently on our last trip we found 9 boxes (an entire case) of Starbucks Frapaccino icecream bars that were all packaged and still frozen. YUM! But last night we got pulled over by a cop who must have been watching us. We are always careful to go well after the store closes, usually around 10:30 or 11 pm and we ALWAYS look for any cars in the parking lot, we don't want to be seen. So I'm worried about the legal side of this. The cop last night said he could have arrested us for trespassing and theft. There were NO signs around the dumpster of the store that said no trespassing. He didn't believe we got the stuff out of the dumpster (he said it was too good of stuff actually), I pleaded with him to please go look for himself as there was still some left, he called backup and sure enough started to soften his attitude toward us, although he was still a total jerk to us and threw his "power" around. I didn't back down and cower though, I wasn't rude but I was firm in that I had called the police department just the day before and talked with officer K.... (won't mention name) and he said it was legal as far as he knew if there were no signs up. So what am I supposed to do? This cop last night said he could arrest me and to ask the stores for permission. HELLO!!!! Do you think the stores are going to say sure take food for free we throw out. Just to prove my point I went this morning and the store said NO and they could have had us arrested and will be putting a sign up ASAP. I haven't asked our local grocery store which is where we get our food from the dumpster (and buy it of course too) because I know what they will say, I used to work there for crying out loud. How can I find out if this "grey area" as the cop told us last night, is in fact legal and we won't get in trouble? I can't find laws on it anywhere. I live in a suberb of Omaha, Ne. I'm not in a huge town like NYC or Seattle as I keep reading people are doing this from. But I feel it's my right do be doing this as well as I have three very young children and you bet it helps out financially. Any help would be greatly appreciated whether it be tips, laws in Nebraska you know about, or any other such advise. Thanks in advance. I really hate to stop doing this as it's rewarding, fun, and financially freeing.

Sincerely,

Rebecca

rb_momof3 at yahoo.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_rescue

The Society of St. Andrew is one nonprofit organization that gleans fields with volunteers. [2]

Businesses that participate receive tax benefits for their donations and are protected from liability lawsuits by the federal**** Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act.

The Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act (Pub.L. 104-210, 110 Stat. 3011, enacted 1996-10-01) was created to encourage food donation to nonprofits by minimizing liability, in accordance with the Model Good Samaritan Food Donation Act. Signed into law by President Bill Clinton, this law, named after Rep. Bill Emerson (who encouraged the proposal but died before it was passed), makes it easier to donate food by allowing donor liability only in cases of gross negligence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerson_Good_Samaritan_Food_Donation_Act

"If everyone were freegan, we'd all starve."

If this were true, the human species would never have survived the early hunter-gatherer days.

"freegan" is not simply a synonym for "dumpster diving," though it is what freegans are most noted for. It is a lifestyle concerned with sustainable living outside the incredibly wasteful, ecologically harmful, consumer driven planet we live on, a method of living that includes recycling waste of ALL kinds. This also includes communal sharing and many self-sustaining lifestyle strategies. If everyone helped each other grow, acquire, and recycle food and other goods, they would hardly all starve to death.

I worked as an aquarist at the Aquarium in Denver, CO, and during the summer there'd be lots of companies having picnics, banquets, or what-have-you on Aquarium grounds. The restaurant side would make trays and trays of food, and despite the threat of being caught by the GM, I would sneak food from the leftovers after the event was over with, because everything served or un-served was destined for the dumpster. I watched them pitch massive trays of coleslaw, barbecue, fruit salads, steamed veggies, and mounds of pastries.... much of it untouched. I began buying tubs to shovel the food into. Some waitstaff were cool about it, and encouraged me to take it, but others pitched fits. Same old 'liability' issue was behind the practice. Jeez, let me sign a waiver or something, saying I won't sue! I just couldn't stand it. I tear up now just thinking of all that food still going to waste.
Now I live in Grand Rapids, MI, am new to dumpster diving, and haven't yet been able to find a grocery store that doesn't use a compactor. Anybody got any suggestions on any chain stores or restaurants to hit up? I haven't had any luck so far. I'm mostly after food.

I worked as an aquarist at the Aquarium in Denver, CO, and during the summer there'd be lots of companies having picnics, banquets, or what-have-you on Aquarium grounds. The restaurant side would make trays and trays of food, and despite the threat of being caught by the GM, I would sneak food from the leftovers after the event was over with, because everything served or un-served was destined for the dumpster. I watched them pitch massive trays of coleslaw, barbecue, fruit salads, steamed veggies, and mounds of pastries.... much of it untouched. I began buying tubs to shovel the food into. Some waitstaff were cool about it, and encouraged me to take it, but others pitched fits. Same old 'liability' issue was behind the practice. Jeez, let me sign a waiver or something, saying I won't sue! I just couldn't stand it. I tear up now just thinking of all that food still going to waste.
Now I live in Grand Rapids, MI, am new to dumpster diving, and haven't yet been able to find a grocery store that doesn't use a compactor. Anybody got any suggestions on any chain stores or restaurants to hit up? I haven't had any luck so far. I'm mostly after food.

I can't remember who posted this, but they're right that there are greedy lawyers out there who will stoop to suing businesses for giving food to the homeless shelter if someone gets sick- I used to work at Quiznos Sub, and they throw away tons of bread and soup, and I asked once if I could take it to the shelter after work, and they have made it company policy not to do that because of threats of lawsuits in the past.

And last, I live in Greenville, NC [hometown of ECU...very much a college town with lots thrown out], and my husband and I dumpster dive from time to time. We'd like to do it more, but we got pulled by a cop last time for pulling a broken mirror out of a dumpster with no signs warning against it! Is anyone from here who knows where to go or how to deal with cops about it?