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September 14, 2015

Dumpster diving for dinner: do you have what it takes to eat ‘freegan’ food?

It’s a Sunday night, sometime after 9pm, I (Shady) am in my car, parked in front of Aldi in 榴莲视频app, writes Associate Professor Karen Charlton.

It鈥檚 a Sunday night, sometime after 9pm, I (Shady) am in my car, parked in front of Aldi in 榴莲视频app. The lot is vacant, the sky black and threatening. I鈥檝e been waiting, checking my phone, glancing up the street. A siren blares out behind me, and my heart pounds. I check the rear-view mirror: just a fire engine.

A car pulls into the empty lot. Then another. I turn the key and trail in behind them. We drive around to the dumpsters on the far side of the parking lot and I slide in next to the small Toyota, leaving a space between us. I crank the window down. 鈥淎nne?鈥� I ask.

A woman in her early twenties with brown eyes and a ponytail says, 鈥淣ah, but she told us you were coming.鈥� Her friend in the passenger seat smiles.

When Anne pulls in, she鈥檚 younger than I expected: probably early twenties too. We鈥檝e connected through Facebook 鈥� friends of friends. I鈥檓 researching dumpster diving for a novel I鈥檓 writing and am keen to get an insider perspective. Another car joins us and now there are about six of us. The dress code seems to be scrubby flannel shirts and lots of black. One of them is wearing a headlamp.

鈥淚s it always women?鈥� I ask.

鈥淗eaps easier with security guards. Better for getting into dumpsters, too.鈥�

I鈥檓 surprised. Ethnographic research from the United States says dumpster diving is predominantly male, and I鈥檓 overcome with love for the tough Aussie woman who鈥檚 not afraid to climb into a garbage bin.

While we introduce ourselves, the woman with the headlamp has checked out the dumpsters and shakes her head. 鈥淩ancid meat.鈥� Anne asks if it鈥檚 OK for her dog, but after another bin check the consensus is no.

The women are careful, respectful of the premises. They tell me the rules: you never mess with locks and only check out dumpsters on the periphery of parking lots because you don鈥檛 want to inadvertently trespass. You鈥檙e looking at stuff that鈥檚 deemed to be in the public domain and there鈥檚 a code: don鈥檛 make a mess, don鈥檛 take more than you need, and don鈥檛 stay if you鈥檙e asked to leave.

Anne gets her phone out, and scrolls through photos from recent hauls: stacks of fresh produce; biscuits and bread; even cartons of beer. The woman from the Toyota says she鈥檚 found brand-new coffee machines in dumpsters, thrown away because of damaged packaging. Frequently they get lots of one thing, like 40 punnets of blueberries that need to be eaten straight away 鈥� it鈥檚 not uncommon to be making jam until 3 am after a diving excursion.

They talk too about the politics of consumption, about how modern living is just and if they can take a little bit out of landfill then that鈥檚 got to be a good thing.

Later that night, at a supermarket in the next suburb, I find five beautifully ripe tomatoes, protected in a plastic bag. My new friend with the headlamp unearths a kilo of broccolini, maybe more. It couldn鈥檛 be in better condition and this worries me. 鈥淲hy鈥檚 it being thrown out?鈥� I whisper.

鈥淪ometimes they just don鈥檛 have room on the shelves. It鈥檚 crazy.鈥�

And this is the question: why should dumpster diving in 榴莲视频app feel covert when I鈥檓 saving perfectly edible produce from becoming landfill? New York City, where I went dumpster diving in the following months, is much more open about it. In fact, there were garbage tours held by where we dug through trash in front of police officers, and passers-by joined in.

Of course there are risks with consuming food that has been discarded. An estimated each year are affected by food poisoning. Particular risk is linked to high-protein foods, such as meat and seafood, that are not stored below 5C, which carry a risk of bacterial contamination with Salmonella, Campylobacter, E. coli and Listeria. All of the divers I鈥檝e come across stress the importance of cleaning food thoroughly before it鈥檚 eaten and few of them eat meat from dumpsters.

Freegan or scavenger?

The term 鈥渇reegan鈥� is used in the United States and other developed countries to describe 鈥減eople who employ alternative strategies for living based on limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources鈥�.

That is, freegans make a conscious choice to limit their consumption 鈥� they aren鈥檛 necessarily . In developing countries the term of 鈥渟cavenger鈥� is often applied to those searching through rubbish and it鈥檚 important to acknowledge the difference between people who dumpster dive through choice rather than necessity.

In my (Shady鈥檚) experience, freegans around the globe were generous with food: they only took what they could use in case someone else raided the same bin, and they always shared with each other. The folks at freegan.info weren鈥檛 about creating a dependency on the dumpster. In fact, they campaigned stores to rethink how much waste was thrown away, even if it impacted their dumpster haul: 鈥� envision a future based on self-sufficient, sustainable communities.鈥�

Formal outlets for food recycling

To be fair, many supermarkets and chains are concerned with reducing their waste, and in Australia, there are several charity organisations that rescue and redistribute fresh surplus food to people in need.

For example, , set up in 2005, accepts food donations from farmers, wholesalers, markets, major supermarkets, caterers and events for redistribution to community food programs that support homeless people, women and families in crisis, youth at risk, indigenous communities, asylum seekers and new arrivals.

But these organisations can鈥檛 keep up with the magnitude of fresh produce that is being dumped daily. This seems particularly worrying when 1.2 billion people worldwide live in extreme poverty and about are undernourished.

Yet, while millions starve, nutritious food is destroyed rather than being given away to hungry families. And those who do wish to avail themselves of this nutritious food need to do it under the cover of darkness.

Regardless of motivation, both freegans and scavengers can be seen as critical to the recycling movement. For instance, in the area surrounding the final disposal site for municipal solid waste in Jakarta, Indonesia, waste pickers collect about , which represents between 2.8% and 7.5% of all solid waste transported to the site.

In developing countries, it has been recognised for some time that rather than being stigmatised, the informal recycling sector should be recognised as an of sustainable waste management.

In Australia, greater attention to ways in which households, food outlets and supermarkets dispose of food waste is needed to arm policy makers with evidence to target individual behaviour change and challenge social norms, for overall positive environmental outcomes.

On an individual level this is about questioning what constitutes waste. Just because someone has called this beautiful tomato 鈥済arbage鈥� by throwing it in a dumpster, it doesn鈥檛 mean we have to agree. We get to make that choice.

, Associate Professor, School of Medicine, and , Senior Lecturer, Creative Writing,

This article was originally published on . Read the .

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