6 Tlike finding things.”

Dan Guy breaks a wide grin as the evening sun
glances off his worn cap and plays through the alley. The
Montreal native’s greying beard doing nothing to hide the
refreshingly childlike enthusiasm of his words as his arms
bear a small basket’s worth of strawberries and oranges.
Even after years of sorting through others’ garbage every
day, the thrill of coming across something good is alive and

well.

“I found over $100 one time,’ he continues, before
wryly adding, “It’s not just for survival. If you just want to
survive there’s other ways.”

It’s the sort of thing most people would we
noses up at without a second thought. Many have difficulty
enough successfully depositing their scraps via a means
other than simply tossing them in the direction of a nearby
garbage can. Getting their head around sifting through
garbage for food and sellable items? Good luck. Welcome
to the world of dumpster diving, where one man’s trash is
quite literally another man’s treasure.

A REAL PROBLEM

“It’s embarrassing sometimes, y'know?” admits another
diver trying to eke a living out of rejected goods. Unable to
hold down a job but moving back home to Ontario in two
months, his options were limited. Though he was having
a good day of it—a paper shredder in excellent condition
and some other clean pieces in his bike basket—it’s
obvious that not everyone takes as peste approach
as Guy. The real ccleaner though? ridiculous
amount of waste the world is responsible for to make
dumpster diving a worthwhile activity.

Here are some worldwide figures from Foodtank.com:
1.3 billion, 1 trillion, 100 kilograms, and 15 times. In order,
they represent how many tons of food get thrown out
annually, the dollar amount attached to that annual food
waste, how much the average European or North American
tosses out each year, and how much more food is wasted
by said Europeans or North Americans than the average
African. To put some of those figures into context—while

-

H look ad dumpster
diving and food waste

BY ERIG WILKINS, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

acknowledging the logistics prevent waste from actually
being used this effectively—the United Nations estimated
in 2008 that $30 billion a year for a decade would support
viable long-term solutions for hunger in the developing
world. That works out to 3 per cent of how much is wasted.
Speaking of figures around $30 billion, according to
a report released in 2014 by Value Chain Management
International, the combined effort of Canadians across
the country managed to needlessly discard over $31 billion
worth of perfectly edible goods. To add to that already
gross figure, the report recognized its inability to factor
waste at federal institutions (e.g., prisons and schools) as
well as the various costs along the way (e.g, transport and
labour) due to the lack of an accurate means of collecting

said data. Estimates put the “true cost” around $100 billion.
That waste isn’t restricted to any specific part of the

process, either. While the report notes that appro

47 per cent ($14.6 billion) is on the shoulders of

individuals, the remaining 53 per cent is spread across

food manufacturing and processing, on farms prior to

getting to market, retailers, restaurants and hotels, and - hk

transportation.

As usual, the brass tacks of it all isn’t as black
and white as one would hope. Money can’t simply be
funnelled from waste irito the marked improvement
of those less fortunate. Excess goods can’t be whisked
away at the drop of a hat to where they’re needed most.
However, there is hope. Last year, France passed a law
requiring supermarkets to donate all edible goods to local
organizations such as food banks and charities. While
thousands of signatures and a snowstorm of paperwork
away from even achieving something remotely similar,
a petition at https:/ /www.change.org/ p/government-of-
canada-let-s-make-it-illegal-for-supermarkets-to-waste-
unsold-food-whatawaste is attempting to do the same in
Canada. Every bit counts.

   

 
 

    

TOSSING OUT PERCEPTIONS

But since the hunger problem wont be solved today
there can at least be a focus on erasing the stigmaa
dumpster diving. The law being of some importanc
dumpster diving is legal as long as it’s not done on |
property, since garbage is public domain. Moving o
has already been made painfully clear, the majority
food found in the trash has absolutely nothing wro
with it. I probably saw hundreds of dollars thrown.
just during the few hours I spent trawling back alle
divers: veritable forests of green sitting near the toy
some heaps, whole watermelons with their sole dar
quality being a few tiny nicks, and an endless strea1
produce that simply wasn’t as aesthetically pleasing

Rpuiceed souls are accustomed to.

: ichard Bridge’, a retired substitute teacher, n
“Tt’s not like you don't wash the fruit you buy from t
store. It’s the same thing, really.” The produce one t
from the market is often grown from synthetic ferti
hodgepodge of chemicals most never bother to, no
to, look up. The worst thing many fear they'll find i
dumpster is a steaming pile of poop, which, if you |
organic, is probably what your food came from any

If the fear is that markets won't be welcoming «
divers, then rest easy. “We don't bother them,” said
Wong, an employee at a Vancouver grocer with sigr
diver traffic. “Why should we?” Bridge, Guy, and a!
of others commented that some places, namely bal

~ will even be friendly about it and put food out in b:

Dumpster diving neither needs to be an everyc
occurrence, nor do you have to be financially wanti
Bridge is an example of that: “How often do I dive?
seldom. I don’t know if I even count that [spending
moment picking through] as a dive. If I see a good
or something on top, that’s just a good piece of frui

So there you have dumpster diving 101. Doesn't
if you're homeless or just looking for a snack; if you
for the challenge, take the plunge.

*name changed at request of diver

~