Well it's been over a month since my last post, and I'm more than a little embarrassed about that. I promise to update you all on my latest dance news soon, but can't wait to tell you about my latest discovery- freeganism.
Whenever the topic comes up, I'm always saying crap about the ridiculous capitalist and consumer based society we live in, and yet I still buy things when I don't need to. I feel like since I've been living on my own, I've gotten much better at not visiting H&M and Forever 21 EVERY TIME I get a paycheck like I once did, but I've noticed that I'm continually making trips to my grocery store. This is probably a common theme for most people , but the one thing I spend the most money on, besides rent, is food.
The idea of dumpster diving for food was first brought up to me by my room mate, Patrick, a little over a month ago. He was telling me that we needed to take a trip to a Panera, because they don't use any preservatives in their breads and therefore throw all of the un-bought, fresh bread in the dumpster. I thought it was a great idea, but unfortunately it didn't come back up until today.
After researching dumpster diving at panera, I learned that several locations actually do something good with their leftovers and donate the loaves, bagels, and pastries to local food banks. Through my online investigation of diving for baked goods, I came across the movement that is known as Freeganism.
Freegans are anti-cosumerists that dumpster dive for everything they need, from food to clothes to furniture. They're in no way homeless or "need" to do what they do, they simply believe in taking full advantage of what is currently available to them and not going for the latest new thing.
Taking a sofa from the side of the road for your living room instead of heading down to Ikea to spend hundreds of dollars on something similar is something that I think many people can at least wrap their heads around doing, but when the question of getting your food from the trash comes up, most will probably gag a bit.
Several sources say that we throw away up to 30% of our food. Most commonly because of the sell-by date(which I should remind you, is still edible for several days past that date)or because one egg in a carton of twelve in cracked, or because there's one moldy strawberry in a whole case. Perfectly fine, edible food is continually thrown away for no good reason. After reading several articles and watching even more youtube videos on the subject, I knew I had to give this a try.
I planned out a route that first involved whole foods. I emptied my messenger bag, put on my grungy kaki pants, boots, and dark rain coat, and headed out for my first night as a freegan. Upon arriving at the whole foods dumpster, I saw that it had a compactor and realized I had to move on to my next location. Next stop was Trader Joes. My guess is someone had beat me to the punch because there wasn't much left in the dumpster, but there was definitely some good stuff. Having only a few bags and being on my bike, I couldn't grab that much anyway. My heart was racing a bit as I stepped up to make my first dig through. I took one last look over my shoulder to make sure the coast was clear and then began rummaging. I quickly saw a box with an old pineapple, cantalope, a nice looking kiwi, and bananas in it. I took the kiwi, and a few bananas. Next I saw another box full of bags of spring mix and took the best looking one. Then I saw several packs of strawberries, nectarines, and mangoes. I had to take one of each.
As I began to gather my things and place them into my bag, I heard a car pull into the parking lot beside the dumpster. Luckily there was a fence surrounding the dumpster so I wasn't in obvious eye range, but I'm sure I could still be seen. I peaked over my shoulder and saw it was a small black sedan, and made a sigh of relief at realizing it was probably just a manager and not the police there to arrest me for indulging in fruit that is not meant to be enjoyed.
I then got back on my bike and headed for the next stop on my route- panera. I was really disappointed that they didn't have ANY bags of leftovers, but it probably means that they were donated, so I guess it's not too bad :P
I decided to try the Starbucks' dumpster for baked goods as well, but didn't find anything there either. It was actually Dunkin' Donuts that had the bagels and croissants I was looking for. There was a large bag full of them, but I only grabbed a few as I didn't have much room left in my bag. Last stop was at the panaderia just down the road from my house, but unfortunately, I couldn't find their dumpster so I had to head home without any loaves of day old bread. Someone should make a google maps section for restaurant dumpsters, don't you think?
So I arrived home feeling great at not only getting a nice little workout from riding around town, but also having enough fruit and bagels to last for several days and the best part, I didn't spend a cent.
I suggest everyone try this. If you can get past the slight smell of old produce and the idea of eating something that was in a dumpster for an hour or two, then this is for you. You help the environment by lowering the amount of waste put into the earth, and you save yourself a butt load of money.
Anyone want to join me on my next dumpster run??
:) Siobhan
