{"id":6788,"date":"2021-10-18T09:48:17","date_gmt":"2021-10-18T13:48:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/?p=6788"},"modified":"2025-07-09T12:28:49","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T16:28:49","slug":"what-happens-to-the-food-you-dont-buy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/2021\/10\/18\/what-happens-to-the-food-you-dont-buy\/","title":{"rendered":"What Happens to the Food You Don\u2019t Buy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

You know when you go to the store and notice that a fruit’s price has gone up? Maybe you think, “Well, I need this for a pie, so I’m buying it anyway.” Some other people might have to give up and buy something else–or go home empty-handed. Not being able to afford food is a sad reality for many people.<\/p>\n

Now, imagine that you are doing your shopping at a big retailer in Australia. After you buy what you need, you go around the parking lot and find a big dumpster behind the store. You open it. You cannot believe your eyes.<\/p>\n

It’s full to the brim with fresh veggies and fruit that are not even ripe yet. You walk a couple more yards and find another bin. It is locked, but you can open it just enough to see what’s inside: fancy cheese, bottles of wine, artisan bread, candy bars….<\/p>\n

The security guard comes along and tells you to leave. They say you can’t have that food because “they don’t want you to get sick.” All that food, enough to feed at least five families for weeks, is waiting for collection. It will all rot in a landfill.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, if you go back on the following week, you will realize that the dumpsters are full again. We like to think that supermarkets would only throw food away if it is contaminated, expired or bad. That is not what happens,\u201d Alberto Peixoto, a member of the dumpster diving community, said. He checks the bins from his local grocery store every week and uses the food he finds to feed his family. He also shares the excess with friends.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Our food system is built to achieve certain goals.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>). 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<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n

Of course, many people at this point do know about the issue. The Facebook group The Melbourne Freegan Co-op<\/a> has 6,500 members. People share what they find and swap goods. Many barely ever shop for food.<\/p>\n

Dumpster diving is a subculture that grows by the day in most rich countries<\/a>. 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<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Meanwhile, around the back… (Photo – 9News).<\/p><\/div>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

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<\/a>. 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.”<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Maybe companies will adopt more ethical and sustainable practices, or maybe they\u2019ll 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You know when you go to the store and notice that a fruit’s price has gone up? Maybe you think, “Well, I need this for a pie, so I’m buying it anyway.” Some other people might have to give up and buy something else–or go home empty-handed. Not being able to afford food is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7381],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6788"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6788\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8240,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6788\/revisions\/8240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}