Dumpster Diving
There’s a world food crisis which has left countries like Haiti with a population dependant on eating mud to survive, there’s a financial crisis that’s forced a careless world to think about it’s endless consumption yet our supermarkets continue to throw away perfectly good food. It’s estimated that you guys, without the help of the supermarkets, throw away 3.6m tonnes of food each year just in England and Wales. In families with children that amounts to 27% of all of your food going in the bin, or to put it another way, you’re throwing £27 out of every £100 spent into the bin. Some estimates put your waste as much as 50%. I decided to take a look for myself just how much food is being wasted.
Our hugely wasteful ways are nothing compared to the supermarkets. It’s estimated, though there are no exact figures because supermarkets are secretive, that 20 million tonnes of food is being thrown away each year. Our food wastage contributes 18% of that figure, the rest is down to restaurants, big business and supermarkets. It’s enough food to meet half of the whole of Africa’s food annual import requirements. The figures are astonishing, to think that the food we throw in the bin could help to feed half of an entire continent hammers home a clear message; what the f**k are we doing?
The figures on waste are just numbers, I wanted to see for myself the amount of food being thrown away by our supermarkets. I have a few friends who swear by freeganism so when the opportunity came up to see what was on offer for myself I jumped at it. The basic concept behind freeganism is to contribute to the economy in a limited way and live off the endless supply of food (and other products) needlessly thrown away.
Waste is a dirty word to western culture, something to be avoided and forgotten about, but freeganism puts you face to face with waste and forces you to contend with it. Just what are we throwing away? If you hop over a fence and into the back of a supermarket you can find out for yourself.
Hop over the wall and you're in.
Run! Security guards and CCTV are watching!
A bin full of untouched, unopened food.
The sell by date on these pizzas was March 2010
The booty
One nights work
The bins at the back of the supermarket weren’t full of off food, the sheer volume of food being thrown away means the bins are emptied regularly meaning anything you find in there was likely put in that day. Secondly, the food is packaged and inside clear bags with dates on them making it easy for you to know what to take and what to leave. 90% of the food in the bins has hit its sell by date meaning the supermarkets, caught in a web of legal nonsense, refuse to even give it away, so it goes in the bin despite it being perfectly safe for consumption. This is happening every day at every supermarket across the whole country, tonnes and tonnes of perfectly consumable food being thrown into the bin.
In one night we bagged hot cross buns, luxury waffles, hot chocolate, 7 pizzas (out of around 30 available), loaves of bread, orange juice, crumpets, biscuits, yoghurt bars and chocolate. There was more food available than we could comfortably carry but it was clear that we weren’t the only people taking free food from the supermarkets, so we left some for others to take home too.
We got straight home and a vegetable pizza with taste the difference orange juice then onto hot chocolate for dessert. Remember, these aren’t bins we’re taking food from, they’re clearance isles where everything is free. If you can figure out how to get into the back of your supermarkets, you can get all of your food for free. You just have to remove the stigma of waste that’s been drilled into your mind; the amount of food we’re wasting is criminal.