Our food system is built to achieve certain goals. For it to work, the food needs to keep flowing. It gets to the store, where it needs to sell as fast as possible. Customers are selective. Nobody wants a bruised apple or a damaged box. The store has no time to waste and no money to lose. They will not inspect every product to find out what has seen better days. These carrots came two weeks ago? Out they go. There are new carrots coming in. Once the new carrots get to the store, nobody will buy the older ones.
Products that are shelf stable do stay in the store for longer, but they need to get out of the way as new shipments come. They will probably not even be expired.
And what do stores do with all the food that needs to be discarded? Some will put items on special. Others realize they don’t make enough money from trying to salvage products and just throw them out. Welcome to the First World.
Unless the law forces stores to donate all their excess food–as it does in France–it is not going to happen. First, because there is no profit for them in doing this. Some stores will donate part of their food to associations such as Oz Harvest (Australia’s leading food rescue organization). That is, if the organization makes the arrangements to pick it up. Second, because the amount of food that leaves the store through the back door is so big, it makes them look bad. If people find out, they might start going straight to the bin instead of buying their food. They might question the prices, protest, expose the company and the environmental impact that this practice causes.
Of course, many people at this point do know about the issue. The Facebook group The Melbourne Freegan Co-op has 6,500 members. People share what they find and swap goods. Many barely ever shop for food.
Dumpster diving is a subculture that grows by the day in most rich countries. The trend exposes companies, and it is forcing them to come up with solutions. Some have already started advertising their goals to become zero waste within a couple of years. Until that happens, multiple families and students are taking advantage of this loophole in the system. It is a way to get access to quality food for free.
Meanwhile, around the back… (Photo – 9News).
Is the practice illegal? Can people get in trouble for it? According to Peixoto, not really. “It’s a gray area. Once the food is discarded, it is not the store’s property anymore. It belongs to the company that owns the bin,” he said. “Of course, you can get in trouble for trespassing if you jump a gate or open a lock. But if you are careful and sensible, it’s pretty safe. The police have more serious things to worry about in a big city.”
And what do employees have to say? There are currently hundreds of videos on TikTok where staff members expose the big retailers they work for. The workers are not allowed to keep any of the products that are destined for the bin. If they do, they could lose their jobs. They need to slash non-food items or damage them on purpose, for insurance purposes. Some employees don’t mind dumpster divers, but many will resent them. “Some can get upset because we are taking products they don’t have permission to keep,” Laura Buckle said. She is also a Melburnian dumpster diver. “But most of the time, they just don’t want to get in trouble. If we go late at night, leave everything tidy and close the bin when we are done, they usually leave us alone. They recognize us in the security cameras and pretend they don’t see us.”
With so many families relying on this food source, including elderly people and children, you might be wondering if it is safe to eat from a bin. “You just need to be careful,” Peixoto said. “Choose the items wisely. If it’s something that was supposed to be frozen and it’s not anymore, leave it there. Most products will be wrapped, you can just throw the package out. If it’s produce, you’re supposed to sanitize it, anyway, even when you buy it,” he said.
Maybe companies will adopt more ethical and sustainable practices, or maybe they’ll just find smarter ways to sweep their waste under the carpet. Only time will tell. Until then, dumpster divers in multiple cities around the world will be able to tap into an abundant supply of goods. It is just a flaw in the system. And while people do this because they want free food and supplies, they rescue thousands of pounds of products before they get to the landfill. The only impact of this practice is less profit for big corporations.
