Dumpster diving involves sneaking into parking lots late at night, hoisting yourself up onto the ledge of a filthy dumpster, and rifling through the trash of others in the hopes of finding something of value or edible. But a growing number of people have figured out that the pay off is so worth the few hours of feeling scummy.
They set morals aside for a minute and make bank. There are blogs popping up all over the internet informing the dumpster diving community where the best spots are, and advising what the best times are to go to these places to avoid getting arrested. But some people are looking for different ways to approach food and waste.
Read more: Dumpster diving for dinner: do you have what it takes to eat 'freegan' food? While there are many reasons why someone might choose — or be forced by economic circumstances — to investigate trash, the young people I spoke to cited a range of motivations: to reduce waste; to create a sense of community; and because they did not want to support unsustainable food markets. Effective solutions could result in tremendous savings and considerable environmental benefit. Read more: 'Successful failures' — the problem with food banks.
My interviewees were motivated to dumpster dive by a range of factors besides the obvious gain of free food and goods. Framing the deed as economic necessity fails to capture a variety of incentives. One young environmentalist told me:.
It was allegedly minted in by the activist Keith McHenry after he found a wheel of cheese in a dumpster. Freegans saw food waste as a symptom of a broken economic system, not the problem itself, said Alex Barnard, an assistant professor of sociology at New York University.
He was active with the New York City group during its height and later wrote a book on freegans and food waste. And that problem is easier to solve than the bigger issue: overproduction. A study last year looked at the app OLIO, a platform for people looking to give away food and other household items to their neighbors.
Not everyone is convinced that all of the companies fighting food waste are solving real problems. Basch sees Too Good To Go as complementary to dumpster diving.
On the whole, Too Good To Go users appear to be happy with the contents of their mystery bags, which have garnered an average rating of 4. More than , Americans have downloaded the app so far, according to a spokesperson. A post shared by Rob Greenfield robjgreenfield. And so, dumpster-diving power couple Erin and Dave Sheffield have turned their dumpster diving hobby into a lucrative gig, according to Business Insider.
Though, they also make a pretty penny from selling scrap metal in bulk. Their methodology is ingenious in its simplicity. According to Wired , Malone makes more diving than he does earning a six-figure salary as a security specialist. Not bad for a hobby!
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