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'''The Ultimate Guide To Dumpster Diving'''
 
'''The Ultimate Guide To Dumpster Diving'''
  
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Coyping this in full so I can see my progress editing it down and into new document.
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1st Edit:
  
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Before I dive in, I need to offer a few obligatory disclaimers.
 
  
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Obviously, getting food from dumpsters isn’t the most sanitary thing you can do, so don’t do it if you are immunocompromised. Never eat food that smells, looks or tastes weird.
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Feel the outside of the bag to understand the shapes of things inside. Slightly lift the bag to get an idea of the weight. Are you feeling some boxy shapes? Is the bag lightweight? In this case, the bag may be full of empty containers and not worth the effort into opening it, if the bag smells or looks rotten move on.
  
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Avoid meat and dairy. Avoid cooked food. Be careful when climbing in and out of dumpsters. Wear gloves to protect your hands from sharp objects.
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==== Labels ====
  
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BE THAT AS IT MAY
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A few important points about dates, those dreaded indicators of food lifespan:
  
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Much like pre-owned materials, dumpster food faces illogical prejudices.
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Best Before Dates: In North America, these have nothing to do with the safety of the food in question. It is an estimate placed by manufacturers as to how much time a food will remain “fresh” – that is, retain it’s best flavor and texture. Even though many stores and people will dump food that has passed its “best before” date, this date should not dissuade you from recovering food.  
  
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Our natural human disdain for eating rotten food has been warped by the unreasonable hygienic standards of our times. In our current day, we have developed a paranoia of anything with blemishes, fuzz or past it’s “best before” date.
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Sell Before Dates: These are used by stores to keep track of inventory, and give an indication of when this food should be moved off the shelf, and to the dumpster. Oftentimes, these ‘sell by’ dates may be many days before the ‘best before’ dates.
  
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These have little to do with whether food is edible and safe. Nonetheless, food is routinely thrown out due to these reasons. It’s gotten to the point where 40% of all food created is sent to the landfill.
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Use By Dates: These dates indicate a manufacturers estimate as too how many days a product will be safe to eat. These dates are somewhat significant. However, it’s not like a food will suddenly be edible one day before the “use by” date, and then magically become inedible the next. These dates are usually conservative for the sake of safety and as protection from litigation.
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A large portion of the food thrown away is not dangerous or inedible. As you’ll see in this post, much of it has no issues at all.
 
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According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, food poisoning seems to be twice as likely in restaurants than at home. Yet we do not regard it as gross or odd that a person should go to a restaurant – even though their chances of getting sick from that food are real and documented.
 
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However, I repeat, if you are elderly, a child and/or immunocompromised, I’d say avoid dumpster diving. Otherwise, enjoy dumpster diving with joyful care!
 
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'''The Dumpster Diving Code'''
 
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As I learned during my initiation into the dumpstering community, there is a code of conduct to which all dumpster divers adhere. If you fail to adhere to the code, you risk having the owner of the dumpster lock the bin, pour bleach on the food or wait for you to return and shout at you for being a dirty hippie. None of that is fun, so read carefully.
 
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'''Rule 1: Dumpster discretely'''
 
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You don’t want to draw attention to yourself while you are dumpstering. People might get spooked and call the cops, or you might get shooed away. Keep noise to an absolute minimum. Speak with an inside voice, don’t throw things around and avoid knocking things over loudly. Go during the cover of night if you can.
 
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'''Rule 2: Leave things better than how you found them'''
 
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Dumpster diving can be messy, smelly business, but you’ve no right to go mess up someone’s garbage area. Avoid tearing bags open, tossing trash on the floor or leaving bags outside the dumpster. If you do need to tear the bags, make sure you tie them back up.
 
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Not only is it rude to leave an area messy, you might attract raccoons and other pests, creating a problem for the innocent dumpster owner. Breaking this rule is a huge motivation for owners to lock their dumpsters, preventing future generations of divers to benefit from the cornucopia of food.
 
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'''Rule 3: Is dumpster diving illegal?'''
 
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In the province of Ontario, Canada, where I live, anything you put into your trash is public property, and so anyone can help themselves (including the Police, FYI).
 
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From my research, it seems like dumpster diving is legal in most parts of the USA. It is illegal in Britain. Here is a good page for information on the legality of dumpster diving.
 
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Never break any locks, climb fences or otherwise force yourself into a dumpster.
 
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Obey all signs. If a sign says “no trespassing”, let it be and go. If someone tells you to leave, then leave. If they tell you to never come back, then never come back.
 
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And that’s it!
 
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Other than these 3 rules, you nearly can’t go wrong.
 
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What can you find while dumpster diving?
 
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In this age of over-consumption and thoughtless waste, you can find anything and everything in dumpsters, including:
 
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    Clothing
 
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    Furniture
 
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    Food
 
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    Electronics
 
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    Building materials
 
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    Raw materials (wood, metal, etc.)
 
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    Recyclables
 
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    Books
 
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    Baby supplies
 
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    And so much more…
 
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The sky is really the limit! The focus of this article is on food. You can find the rest of that stuff cheaply and easily in thrift stores, or on online classifieds.
 
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'''What gear do you need to dumpster dive?'''
 
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Dumpster diving is a messy business.
 
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You’ll want to ensure that you are well-equipped for the job so that the task is as pleasant as possible.
 
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Long sleeve shirts and pants. I recommend that you equip yourself with a long sleeve shirt and pants. There is a risk that you might splash something nasty on yourself, and it’s better that it should end up on your clothing than your skin. What’s more, long sleeves and pants will protect you from any sharp objects and keep you warm.
 
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A headlamp. If possible, you want to go dumpster diving during the cover of night to avoid detection and drawing attention to yourself. A headlamp is essential for freeing your hands for maximum flexibility and digging. Trust me, the light of streetlamps will not be sufficient to give you the required visibility for optimum diving.
 
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Thick gloves. You’ll want some gloves for protection and warmth. Getting your hands covered in trash water is unsettling, and also, will get your hands freezing, especially if you are dumpstering at night. Gloves will also protect you from sharp edges, glass and other dumpster hazards.
 
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A face mask. This is optional, but helpful for novices. Even though a large portion of the food retrieved from dumpster is fresh, rot may have settled into a some. If you’ve got a strong sense of smell, a mask can help you stay strong in the light of unpleasant odors.
 
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Close-toe shoes. Leave your dandy sandals at home. Get yourself a sturdy pair of shoes to take with you diving. This will help you jump and walk over the dumpster and its content.
 
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Bags. To take home your haul.
 
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A wheelbarrow/cart. To help carry your enormous, delicious haul
 
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A small knife/scissors. Helpful for cutting into bags and boxes to view the insides, or even cutting away the bruised bit of an apple for a quick snack.
 
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'''The Best Places to Dumpster Dive'''
 
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For finding food, grocery stores dumpsters are your best best, but I’d generally avoid larger or discount chains, such as Food Basics (Canadian chain) or Costco (US chain). These large chains typically have the time and money to use food compactors. This makes their thrown-out food inaccessible.
 
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However, not all large chains are bad.
 
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Walmart may work well – I’ve seen many Walmarts simply toss their food into regular (and accessible) trash cans.
 
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Places like Trader Joes and Whole Foods also tend to not have compactors, and leave their food in unlocked dumpsters and regular trashcans. Really excellent places to get organic goods.
 
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Corner stores are also excellent – these are smaller places and neither have the time or staff to effectively throw out food. If you live in a city, you’ll find a lot of success by going to downtown and checking behind and on the sides of small, corner grocery stores. Often, you can get a lot of good stuff by just skimming the top.
 
  
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Remember, dumpster diving is a hunt. Don’t give up if the first few places you visit don’t have what you were looking for.
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=== Resources ===
  
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For stores closely positioned to a street, you may need to walk down to an alley and turn into it. Many cities will have compost-only bins, typically colored in a shade of green. These are perfect. They separate the food away from the non-food items, making it easy to find the grub you seek.
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Trashwiki [https://trashwiki.org/en/Freeganism] is the go to that every freegan uses for maps and information on big cities when they don't know their way around or have someone to show them. Helplful 'last checked' dates also.
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When Should you go Diving?
 
  
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When is just as important as where.
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== Stigma ==
  
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Try to time your dumpstering adventure close to garbage day in the area you are targeting. You can easily find this information on a municipality’s website.
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Much like pre-owned materials, dumpster food face some illogical prejudices.
  
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You can definitely find good stuff during other times, but if you want the biggest volume of things to choose from, go before or on garbage day (before the garbage is taken away, of course).
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Our aversion to food that hasn’t been shrink-wrapped or with any blemishes or oddly shaped, past it’s “best before” date, is often a result of commercial processes tailoring to an unreasonable aesthetic consumer preference. These have little to do with whether food is edible and safe. Nonetheless, food is routinely thrown out due to these reasons. It’s gotten to the point where 40% of all food created is sent to the landfill.
  
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You might find it easier to dive during the cover of night as you’ll minimize the chance of getting detected. But I don’t give a damn, so I go at noon during FULL SUN.
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A large portion of the food thrown away is not dangerous or inedible, much of it has no issues at all.
  
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'''How to Pick Good Dumpster Food'''
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Research on freegans finds that individuals come from middle-class and upper-class backgrounds and have high levels of education (even if their present lifestyles make them low-income).
  
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You might find food right at the surface of the dumpster. This is the best situation, and one which many would prefer.
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I am extremely embarrassed for people to see me diving, because I can tell that I’m not just me, I’m also a representation of black people in general...I got harassed by security several times while diving on my own campus, until my white friends pop their heads out of the dumpsters.
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Other times, you may need to remove a few layers of bags and do some more exploration before hitting gold.
 
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In order to conserve energy and effort, follow the steps below:
 
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Feel the outside of the bag to understand the shapes of things inside. Slightly lift the bag to get an idea of the weight. Are you feeling some boxy shapes? Is the bag lightweight? In this case, the bag may be full of empty containers and not worth the effort into opening it.
 
−
 
 
−
A few important points about dates, those dreaded indicators of food lifespan:
 
−
 
 
−
Best Before Dates: In North America, these have nothing to do with the safety of the food in question. It is an estimate placed by manufacturers as to how much time a food will remain “fresh” – that is, retain it’s best flavor and texture. Even though many stores and people will dump food that has passed its “best before” date, this date should not dissuade you from recovering food. The LSTG rule applies here.
 
−
 
 
−
Sell Before Dates: These are used by stores to keep track of inventory, and give an indication of when this food should be moved off the shelf, and to the dumpster. Oftentimes, these ‘sell by’ dates may be many days before the ‘best before’ dates.
 
−
 
 
−
Use By Dates: These dates indicate a manufacturers estimate as too how many days a product will be safe to eat. These dates are somewhat significant. However, it’s not like a food will suddenly be edible one day before the “use by” date, and then magically become inedible the next. These dates are usually conservative for the sake of safety and as protection from litigation.
 

Revision as of 09:21, 18 July 2017

How it relates to veganism, how pragmatic it can be when done right, how the end goal should be bringing awareness to end food waste, but also how it can be a vital toolkit in cheaply running new projects, supporting the homeless and domestic animals which are obligate carnivores. --NonZeroSum (talk) 06:29, 15 July 2017 (CEST)


Wiki quoting

Hard to do much better than the wiki definition, history and policy impact. And if we could wouldn't we want to change the Wikipedia definition also? In such a circumstance is it ok to copy verbatim or should we keep in quote and reference form?

Not sure if this is how other small mediawiki operations do it, but seems we can copy verbatim without quote-marking:[1]

As of July 15, 2009 Wikipedia has moved to a dual-licensing system that supersedes the previous GFDL only licensing. In short, this means that text licensed under the GFDL only can no longer be imported to Wikipedia, retroactive to 1 November 2008. Additionally, Wikipedia text might or might not now be exportable under the GFDL depending on whether or not any content was added and not removed since July 15 2009. See Wikipedia:Licensing update for further information.

Verbatim copying under the GFDL is one of the ways to reuse Wikipedia articles and other material. You may only use this approach for pages that do not incorporate text that is exclusively available under CC-BY-SA or a CC-BY-SA-compatible license. See Re-use of text under the GNU Free Documentation License.

For the purposes of this discussion, Wikipedia is considered to be a Collection of Documents. (An alternative interpretation could be that Wikipedia is a single Document, which invalidates the discussion on this page.)

Page Layout Ideas?

Keep going with facts & information, activism and alternative perspectives? --NonZeroSum (talk) 06:29, 15 July 2017 (CEST),

Sounds like a good general guideline.--BrimstoneSaladWiki (talk) 02:01, 16 July 2017 (CEST)

To Draw from

Forum Threads

Hyperlinks [2]

  • How Much Food Can You Find In A Dumpster? (Vegan Gains)
  • Vegan makes profit from roadkill
  • Is it okay to eat meat that you did not buy?
  • Part Vegan Part Freegan? The concept of use?
  • Eggs and Veganism
  • Backyard rescue hens
  • Veganism and Dumpster Diving
  • FREEGAN VEGAN BEEGAN’S!?

External links

Wikipedia [3]

Very thorough, we can probably reference to their history overview. --NonZeroSum (talk) 06:29, 15 July 2017 (CEST)


Trashwiki [4]

This site is the go to that every freegan uses for maps and information on big cities when they don't know their way around or have someone to show them. Helplful 'last checked' dates also. Interesting recorded Freegan News and Events also.[5] --NonZeroSum (talk) 06:29, 15 July 2017 (CEST) Freeganism is a practice and ideology of limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources, particularly through recovering wasted goods like food.[1] The word "freegan" is a portmanteau of "free" and "vegan".[2] While vegans might avoid buying animal products as an act of protest against animal exploitation, freegans—at least in theory—avoid buying anything as an act of protest against the food system in general.

Freeganism is often presented as synonymous with "dumpster diving" for discarded food, although freegans are distinguished by their association with an anti-consumerist and anti-capitalist ideology and their engagement in a wider range of alternative living strategies, such as voluntary unemployment, squatting abandoned buildings, and "guerilla gardening" in unoccupied city parks.[3]

The Ultimate Guide To Dumpster Diving

1st Edit:


Feel the outside of the bag to understand the shapes of things inside. Slightly lift the bag to get an idea of the weight. Are you feeling some boxy shapes? Is the bag lightweight? In this case, the bag may be full of empty containers and not worth the effort into opening it, if the bag smells or looks rotten move on.

Labels

A few important points about dates, those dreaded indicators of food lifespan:

Best Before Dates: In North America, these have nothing to do with the safety of the food in question. It is an estimate placed by manufacturers as to how much time a food will remain “fresh” – that is, retain it’s best flavor and texture. Even though many stores and people will dump food that has passed its “best before” date, this date should not dissuade you from recovering food.

Sell Before Dates: These are used by stores to keep track of inventory, and give an indication of when this food should be moved off the shelf, and to the dumpster. Oftentimes, these ‘sell by’ dates may be many days before the ‘best before’ dates.

Use By Dates: These dates indicate a manufacturers estimate as too how many days a product will be safe to eat. These dates are somewhat significant. However, it’s not like a food will suddenly be edible one day before the “use by” date, and then magically become inedible the next. These dates are usually conservative for the sake of safety and as protection from litigation.

Resources

Trashwiki [6] is the go to that every freegan uses for maps and information on big cities when they don't know their way around or have someone to show them. Helplful 'last checked' dates also.

Stigma

Much like pre-owned materials, dumpster food face some illogical prejudices.

Our aversion to food that hasn’t been shrink-wrapped or with any blemishes or oddly shaped, past it’s “best before” date, is often a result of commercial processes tailoring to an unreasonable aesthetic consumer preference. These have little to do with whether food is edible and safe. Nonetheless, food is routinely thrown out due to these reasons. It’s gotten to the point where 40% of all food created is sent to the landfill.

A large portion of the food thrown away is not dangerous or inedible, much of it has no issues at all.

Research on freegans finds that individuals come from middle-class and upper-class backgrounds and have high levels of education (even if their present lifestyles make them low-income).

I am extremely embarrassed for people to see me diving, because I can tell that I’m not just me, I’m also a representation of black people in general...I got harassed by security several times while diving on my own campus, until my white friends pop their heads out of the dumpsters.

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