:Dumpster Diving

23.06.2009: on the longest day of the year (or thereabouts) we can't really wait for it to get dark before hitting the dumpsters. and so it's surprising how few and unfunny the looks are we get, the dumpster on the corner of the street and emil completely inside it, complaining something about the apples or the broccoli. i can't remember. but it was a nice trip with no hassle.

• 6 loaves
• 4 pizza breads
• 1 melon
• 1 pineapple
• 1 broccoli
• 400g mushrooms
• 1.5kg organic red onions
• 30 oranges
• 8 apples
• 3 nectarines
• 1 lime
• 3 avocados

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28.03.2009: two nights in row. small one-man dives. yields:

• 650g new potatoes
• lettuce
• 3 loaves
• 16 buns
• 8 organic eggs
• lettuce
• 2 breads
• organic fresh pasta

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19.03.2009: that promising looking dumpster was looking promising for a reason. it yields.

• 7 organic aubergine
• 4 organic brocolli
• 1 organic small box of radishes
• 1 green pepper
• 2 lettuce
• 1 organic liter milk
• more bread than we could count (two large bags full)
• enough meat to fill a freezer tray

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13.05.2009: in the last year our local area has gone from being the best dumpster diving spot in the city to the worst. so last night, desperate for free bread, we went off in search of new stores. again. armed with a couple of flashlights, a lovely evening (i'd say balmy but i'd be lying) and no map. our walk took us way further than we originally intended, who knew islands brygge was all dark alleys and pedestrian unfriendly building sites?

what we found was mostly bitter disappointed, sweetened slightly by one promising dumpster behind an exceptionally large supermarket. we will be checking it out again.

along another road we found a supermarket with their dumpster right out there on the street corner. there's something about the openness of it that makes me completely unabashed. passing cars or pedestrians, whatever, we have nothing to hide. and inside we found 84 bags of chips, which are perfect for our eurovision party (i'm actually serious). we also found a few potatoes.

not too shabby.

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12.03.2009: we've had a number of journalists contact us recently, various questions for various purposes, so i thought i'd post some of my replies. try to kill the lull in action, etc:

Why don't you class yourselves as freegans or like the word?

there's two things. firstly there's what it means to be 'freegan'. it's a nice idea but it's not actually possible for us, and i don't want to claim to be something i'm not (i'm reminded of the "vegetarians" who eats fish, who are they kidding?). secondly, i've never liked the word as it implies a degree of choice, that you've chosen to be freegan, and the people who are closest to the ideals of freeganism are so because they have to do be, not because they're chosen it. the word is like a means for the middle class to seperate themselves from the scum - the people who squat, the homeless, etc.

but i still think it's all the media's fault. for instance, where did you hear about freeganism? it's a catchy word, simple principles blanket applied to a diverse group, the kind of thing the mainstream media loves.

i just remembered a third problem with freeganism. we all know that consumer democracy doesn't work, but there are many people who are trying very hard to provide customers with local, organic, fairtrade, healthy, ethically wonderful produce. these people need support,and by being freegan you're not supporting anyone. it's like you're not actually fighting the evil corporate supermarkets and food giants, you're just giving up and ignoring them. it's not a solution that will scale up. the only way it's at all effective is by getting attention and making other people aware of the problems. i guess freegans are hoping those other people will solve the problems.

i'm not saying dumpster diving is any different, but it has less pretense. and these are just the feelings i get from the words.. i'm as much a victim of media hype as anyone.


How did you get involved in dumpster diving?

i was first introduced to dumpster diving when i was living in brighton (uk). i lived with a couple of anarchists who would go out on mysterious "skipping" expeditions and come back with hard bread, floppy vegetables and half rotten fruit (i'm sure i only saw the worst of it). i was never much interested, the food would be left in the fridge and not taken care off and go moldy etc, it all seemed a bit pointless. but then i moved to copenhagen and started going out myself, exploring behind all the local supermarkets, and i couldn't believe the quantity and quality of the food we'd find. i guess it was a mixture of disdain for the supermarkets (and the entire food industry) and the new found ability to eat for free. i can't stand to see things wasted, food especially, so dumpster diving is a win-win situation (for everyone). and behind the environmental issues and politics there's always that primal hunter-gather instinct. wait, i'm being horribly pretentious now.

anyway, it started out as more curiousity than need.


What does dumpster diving mean to you?

there's no such thing as a free lunch right? for a dumpster diver there's thousands of free lunches, unfortunately the cost (guilt free for the dumpster diver) is on the planet. it's about the waste generation, our obscene consumer society, the failings of supply and demand.. blah blah blah


What percentage of your day-to-day requirements are met by dumpster diving?

at the moment only about 5% of our requirements are met by dumpster diving, which is due to various annoying circumstances, mostly work and time constraints coupled with all our local supermarkets taking anti-diving measures. i don't think they're targetting us personally, rather other people who have been raiding the same bins and not being at all inconspicuous. recently there's also been a surge in the media about dumpster diving, so perhaps the supermarkets have had orders from the top to take action against us. either way, there's nothing but empty dumpsters and parking lots behind our local supermarkets. we've lost our good food sources and unfortunately it's not because the food isn't being wasted anymore (the dichotomy with dumpster diving is that once you've achieved your goals you can no longer dumpster dive) but because the waste is being hidden and locked away.

also i'm vegan and there's absolutely no way i could eat healthily just from the food we dumpster dive. it's just not realistic in our area. but how it does help is that it greatly reduces the cost of basic food and vege so that i can then afford to buy food from the independent local organic shops, which i wouldn't necessarily be able to do otherwise.


Can you tell me about some of the things you do on a day-to-day basis?

relating to dumspter diving or in general? in general i volunteer in a fairtrade/organic cafe in the city (run by the largest charity here in denmark) and also a student cafe/bar. i play in a number of diverse bands. i read too much. i go to school twice a week to learn danish. i cycle a lot. i'm a self-hating middle classer. and please don't quote me on that.


Do you ever worry about any health or legal implcations of dumspter diving?

we're rigorous about health issues so we don't have to worry. we're just careful. people worry too much and know too little about their food. they should be more worried about the pesticides on their fruit than we should be about bateria etc that can get through packaging and not be washed off. most food we take was on the shelf only a couple of hours ago, not much happens to it during that period. the only serious problem is when there's a recall and contaminated food is thrown out. if it's not obvious that that's what's happened then it can be dangerous. but still, the statistics are on our side.


What reactions have you had from other people about dumpster diving?

most people love it and can't wait to try it themselves. or, they subtely stop eating the food we just gave them and start telling us about the dangers of old eggs and dairy. mostly people know what we're like anyway, so it often doesn't come as a surprise (from family etc). when it comes to specific raids, showing them how much we've found (i'm sure you've seen our photos), people are either jealous of us or angry at the supermarkets. people don't realise quite how much is wasted. it doesn't take much maths to scale up the contents of one dumpster to work out how much every supermarket in your area wastes every day. and that excludes the waste at other level of the food supply chain.


What advice would you give to someone else who is thinking of dumspter diving?

i think if you'd like to dumpster dive you've already taken the hardest step. you can see the mess we're in and have the right values, you just have to stick to them and apply them in meaningful and effective ways. wait, that sounds terribly bullshitty and pretentious. i don't know. i guess realistically i'd tell them all the things that we've written in our dumpster diving guide.

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28.01.2009: finally some genuine dumpster diving. genuine meaning you get old yoghurt smeared all over your hands. it means feeling your way through random dumpsters without a torch, and of course it's the locked dumpster that contains all the bread. we should have known it without looking, it would have saved me from yoghurt. but i was just in denial.

no worries. a locked dumpster can be prised up at the edges for some kind of minimal access. we managed to pull out a series of buns, breads and pastries, enough to keep us occupied as we slunk our way to the next bar. my prize was a tasty bread covered in pumpkin seads and something containing raisins. croissants, as always.

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20.01.2009: we've had a serious lack of posts since last october, for which i'm sure there are many reasons, but it mostly comes down to defeat and laziness (also having a job that requires you to be in bed before 9pm). in the last few months we've seen all of favourite supermarkets start locking away their dumpsters. last night we went for a long investigative walk around our local area and found nothing. it really is no good.

i'm not sure what we will do but we'll try and come up with something. where there's a will there's a way. but when it's this cold, the will kind of wanes a bit.

we've also had a serious indian meal moth infestation. no small problem, but as of today we've been clear for 17 days (still too early to celebrate though, they tend to stay dormant when it's cold). but we've had to be very careful with our food and we've been forced to throw a lot out, ironic huh?. they get everywhere, we even had the fuckers in our tea, so now absolutely everything is stored in seperate airtight containers.

we don't know how they got into our provisions, but we can't rule out dumpster diving. maybe it should be added to the list of potential dumpster diving hazards.

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10.10.2008: i get home and the kitchen table is covered by packets of bike lights. what's going on? most of them didn't work at all. some would switch on and then not switch off. there was barely a packet with both white and red lights working. but how is that a reason to throw them all out? i went through them, taking out the working ones, then finding good combinations of charged batteries and working electronics. and added bonus is we can also dispose of the batteries properly now.

we also restocked our bread, something that's seems to be getting more and more dangerous. we've had a couple of aborted attempts recently, but since it's not me going on these runs they're largely shrouded in mystery. the bakery we target is in the middle of town, and it's only under great intoxication that a heist is attempted. success or failure is obvious, there's either a huge bin bag of bread on our kitchen table or there isn't, but the exact details are often forgot in the drunken haze ("what? i bought bread home last night?", kind of thing).

as a disclaimer, we're normally a lot more responsible than this.

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25.09.2008: just so you know, we still haven't run out of bread. our freezer is going strong. if we're lucky it may even last out the month.

but we can't survive on bread. a few nights ago a couple of us went out to see how our local scene is progressing. word on the street is "badly". the nearest dumpsters haven't returned and the rest of the pickings were slim. all we found was a half full can of hairspray. and that's not edible.

we need to make good on our promise of biking out to fresh pastures. soon.

as for non-food, we've been doing as well as ever. we've replaced numerous TVs, replenished kitchen utensils (all as good as new), pots enough, some great books, and i even found an enlarger, only it was missing a lens so i took it back.

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05.09.2008: been too busy having fun to update, sorry. but we've only be rocking some rather fantastic bread anyway. only? check this out:

more bread than emil (wait, i know that sentence doens't make sense). that's the "dumpster diver's dozen" we picked up last night. a 4am bread run (don't go later than this, bakeries open horribly early). we got lucky though, we almost couldn't get in. the bakery's beefed up the locks on the doors to the courtyard where their dumpster is, we really had to push it hard. they'd painted it too. but seriously, if they want to keep people out (and this is completely understandable) they shouldn't throw away quite so much bread. just look at it. every night there's that much bread. and it's the third of such runs we've done recently. a couple of weeks back i cycled home with a two bin bags strapped to my bike, one on the front and one on the back. and it's fantastic bread too. we took almost $200 worth last time (well, that's not what it's worth, just how much it would cost).

i might have to resort to eating bread sandwiches. y'know, a sandwich with bread in it.

and everywhere i look i'm covered all in flour.

we we're a little too noisy though. when we discovered the new security we tried to enter through the side door. someone must have seen us because about half a minute later a guy came around the corner and started looking up and down the street. i was on look out duty and did a great job of looking unsuspicious and innocuous. it's easy though when the dude's clearly looking for a punk. he didn't even register me. it's a good job emil didn't come out at that moment with those two huge bin bags.

but hey, we're pros. we always make our getaway.

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11.08.2008: i'm finally back in copenhagen, and back to a fridge and freezer both full of great bread. it's a wonderful thing to come home to.

unfortunately (and actually, it really is a shame), you can't live off bread. so we went out diving to see if any of our locals have improved. unfortunately not. we found:

• loaf of bread
• 15 buns
• 18 eggs
• 6 litres of orange juice
• flodeboller (you don't want to know)

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30.07.2008: i'm currently on the move, so to fill the void i thought i'd post a couple of videos i've been sitting on for a while, all worth watching.

this first is a sixish minute documentary from travis sheilds, meet the freegans.

then there's a slightly longer documentary called skipping meals, which gets bonus points for not using the word 'freegan'.

and finally there was short piece on the telegraph website dumpster diving with the freegans.

what i like about these videos is they all feature reasonably normal people. normal enough. maybe the word i'm looking for is respectable? the divers don't come across like obsessive idiots, which is how a lot of us in the north american press have been portrayed (it's not the interviewees fault). the dumpster divers in the above films are not being shown as freaks for the masses to laugh at, they're smart and generally well spoken.

what i'm not so keen on is the naming of specific supermarkets. they wont like it, and they'll react. and not by wasting less food, they'll just make it harder for us to take it. but then i'm sure the telegraph doesn't care about that.

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