halfpintpeggy
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2015
- Messages
- 1,676
Sooo...recently found out that a dear friend of mine is a dumpster diver! She is well educated, has a good job, owns her own home, etc. She is also very environmentally conscious & believes that the American society is too wasteful. She gets roughly 80% of her food from...grocery store dumpsters!!! Wow, I have to tell ya I was blown away when I found this out. I'm certainly not judging because, to each his/her own. Apparently dumpster diving is not illegal here so long as there are not any no trespassing signs & the dumpsters are unlocked and accessible.
I did ask her about the health risks, etc. involved with this lifestyle and she asked me to come along with her to see what she was doing. Always up for an adventure, I went ahead & rode along with her last night - my mind was blown away! She visits a few different sites once or twice a week. She gets ALL of her fresh produce from a local store where they package their produce so the fruits & veggies are not touching any of the trash. Actually, the rest of the trash was just packaging like cardboard boxes, etc. She came away with a couple 3 lb. bags of potatoes, tomatoes on the vine, 2 bunches of organic bananas, bags of apples & oranges, packs of organic zucchini, bags of grapes, heads of broccoli, and a bag of onions. She barely made a dent in what was there because the dumpster was FULL of fresh produce.
At the second stop, she grabbed a couple of gallons of milk that were 12 days away from their sell by date, a couple of dozen eggs - each dozen had 1 slightly cracked egg in it which went back into the dumpster - the sell by date on the eggs were the end of February. She also got cups of organic yogurt that were a week away from their sell by date, and a couple of boxes of organic butter where the boxes were ever so slightly smushed on one end. I should note that she said she always goes within an hour of the store closing, everything was still ice cold. Also, there had to have been 30-40 gallons of milk and dozens and dozens of eggs in that dumpster. I was shocked but she told me that it is always like this.
The third stop didn't even involve a dumpster. There were 2 of those long pull carts piled high with cases (CASES!!!) of the artisanal breads, cakes, muffins, all of the stuff sold by the bakery department. The pull carts were sitting next to the dumpster. All of the items were individually packaged, still in the original boxes, and still in date. I found all of the shocking and disturbing.
I kept asking, WHY are these items not being donated to local food pantries? My friend said she has asked the same questions and was told that the stores get more $$$ for throwing away overstocked/unsold items than they do if they donate it, that is crazy!!! Oh, almost forgot, she also found entire display boxes with 60 rolls gift wrapping paper in each one, they were not even opened, the display boxes of bows were there as well.
She immediately goes home, unwraps all of the produce, etc, discards the packaging, & washes the food items. I should also add that she never gets into an actual dumpster, just stands by the sliding door thingy on the side & picks out what she wants. Sorry this post is SO long, but finding out that she does this, & then going along and seeing for myself, I'm simply baffled, can't wrap my mind around all of this food waste. And btw, the produce looked perfect and fresh. Would love to hear your thoughts as I'm sworn to secrecy from telling our "real life" friends about this lol.
I did ask her about the health risks, etc. involved with this lifestyle and she asked me to come along with her to see what she was doing. Always up for an adventure, I went ahead & rode along with her last night - my mind was blown away! She visits a few different sites once or twice a week. She gets ALL of her fresh produce from a local store where they package their produce so the fruits & veggies are not touching any of the trash. Actually, the rest of the trash was just packaging like cardboard boxes, etc. She came away with a couple 3 lb. bags of potatoes, tomatoes on the vine, 2 bunches of organic bananas, bags of apples & oranges, packs of organic zucchini, bags of grapes, heads of broccoli, and a bag of onions. She barely made a dent in what was there because the dumpster was FULL of fresh produce.
At the second stop, she grabbed a couple of gallons of milk that were 12 days away from their sell by date, a couple of dozen eggs - each dozen had 1 slightly cracked egg in it which went back into the dumpster - the sell by date on the eggs were the end of February. She also got cups of organic yogurt that were a week away from their sell by date, and a couple of boxes of organic butter where the boxes were ever so slightly smushed on one end. I should note that she said she always goes within an hour of the store closing, everything was still ice cold. Also, there had to have been 30-40 gallons of milk and dozens and dozens of eggs in that dumpster. I was shocked but she told me that it is always like this.
The third stop didn't even involve a dumpster. There were 2 of those long pull carts piled high with cases (CASES!!!) of the artisanal breads, cakes, muffins, all of the stuff sold by the bakery department. The pull carts were sitting next to the dumpster. All of the items were individually packaged, still in the original boxes, and still in date. I found all of the shocking and disturbing.
I kept asking, WHY are these items not being donated to local food pantries? My friend said she has asked the same questions and was told that the stores get more $$$ for throwing away overstocked/unsold items than they do if they donate it, that is crazy!!! Oh, almost forgot, she also found entire display boxes with 60 rolls gift wrapping paper in each one, they were not even opened, the display boxes of bows were there as well.
She immediately goes home, unwraps all of the produce, etc, discards the packaging, & washes the food items. I should also add that she never gets into an actual dumpster, just stands by the sliding door thingy on the side & picks out what she wants. Sorry this post is SO long, but finding out that she does this, & then going along and seeing for myself, I'm simply baffled, can't wrap my mind around all of this food waste. And btw, the produce looked perfect and fresh. Would love to hear your thoughts as I'm sworn to secrecy from telling our "real life" friends about this lol.
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