Photo: Wikicommons
Veritas gets down in the dumpster in the hunt for free food
With the country now ‘officially’ in recession, after the worst slump in gross domestic product (GDP) since 1980, unemployment is on the rise in all industries with predictions of two million jobless in 2009. Though quarterly student loans means that Scottish students are less affected, a high proportion of Napier’s international students relying on part-time jobs are less lucky.
But instead of focusing on the recession, and predictions that it’s only going to get worse, Veritas has hit the streets in its first instalment of ‘how to live for free…’ This month we look at food and the practise of ‘dumpster-diving’ – where people go through supermarket chain bins filling their fridges with food waste.
Starting back in the mid-‘90s in New York, the ‘freegan’ movement has gathered momentum in the past year in the UK, with research figures revealing a high proportion of the 6.7 million tonnes sent to landfill annually is ‘avoidable’. The movement in Edinburgh has also grown in popularity, with numerous online forums organising meet-ups as well as positive media attention.
Instead of taking the ‘easy’ positive observant angle that we’ve seen by local reporters, Veritas decided to live on urban waste for three days to see if the practise has any real merit.
It’s 11pm on a Thursday night. Dressed in black with large rucksacks, we start in the city centre, in the laneways behind Princes Street where High Street food stores Marks and Spencer and Sainsbury’s are sure to dump at least some proportion of the annual 6.7 million tonnes in their bins.
Upon closer inspection in the dingy deserted service streets, the bins are mostly empty. So with a few pastries and a loaf of bread we move on to Tesco’s – Britain’s largest supermarket chain.
Circling around the building on Nicolson Street, and mistakenly sifting through domestic waste bins, we find that Tesco is ahead of the game – its rubbish safely locked away behind a one-storey tall, four-metre wide metal roller door with the Tesco logo emblazoned on its side. Tough luck for some.
The next stop is Waitrose in Morningside, following a recommendation by a former employee. We get there at 1am – and we’re too late. Beyond the stench of the red metal container, each bag has been ripped down the middle and little is left but some avocados, three vegetarian lasagne ready meals and some sweet potatoes.
After our somewhat disappointing plunder we head home, stopping behind Lothian Road where we find three packets of donuts and more loaves of bread. With enough food for a few meals and a couple of snacks, we decide that if there’s any loot to be had it isn’t in the smelly inner city alleyways.
It’s a Friday night and the Real Mackenzies are playing at Bannermans, the wind is freezing and exams are over. But a challenge is a challenge.
We head to an outer Edinburgh retail park, a twenty minute bus trip from the centre. A deserted car park framed by three strips of shops is illuminated in the blackness and a burglar alarm echoes off the walls from all directions. Between us we figure out a story to tell the police when they turn up in the empty lot to find two students dressed in black and carrying big rucksacks.
The siren keeps on, but the police never show.
We head straight for Marks and Spencer, a rectangular block of concrete in the corner. The alleyway behind the building is orderly and well-lit, with four clean red wheelie bins at its centre. We open the first bin and it’s packed with garbage bags filled with M&S own brand ready meals, fresh fruit and vegetables, desserts, chocolate, packaged meat and boxed salads.
A few items are more than a week old so we leave them, but to our surprise most of the stuff is either just within its use-by-date, or has a week or more to go. Our rucksacks fill up quickly, with a high-quality range of foods – some covered in blue food dye to deter bin scavengers like ourselves. Considering the amount of colouring in everyday food, and the impenetrable dense packaging, the dye only adds to the irony of our excessive waste – and the current global food shortage.
At home we lay the stuff out on the table and as far as Marks and Spencer prices go, we figure that the retail price for the lot is around £60. The food from both nights gave us enough to live on for around three more days, bring the total number of ‘free food days’ to five.
Rather than the bin scavenging of the night before, this night’s food hunt felt more like someone had decided to leave us a buffet of pre-packaged goods in a treasure hunt without a map. Or put simply, rather than ‘consumer waste’, it was just free food.
Or almost free. The bus cost us £2.60 return.
