Woman Recounts 10 Years of Dumpster Diving

From the Asheville Citizen-Times (NC).

"Joan Walker once catered a party from discarded food found while Dumpster diving.

She and her husband, Anders Johnson, are proud divers and retrievers of perfectly usable and edible foods and furnishings.

“I call myself an opportunist,” Joan said of her little hobby. She also considers herself an environmentalist, saving good food that would otherwise go to waste.

This Woodfin woman, 28, and now an environmental consultant and graduate student, began her odoriferous journey into the Big Greens in 2001, when she was a poor college coed.

“I was broke,” she said. “I was 19 when I moved here and was a student just scraping by.”

Joan is aghast and surprised at the foods stores throw out, such as produce and cheese with shelf lives remaining.

“They throw out so much stuff,” she said. “Any produce when it gets ripe. I've gotten tons of fresh vegetables and fruit intact. I've found breads and stuff from the bakery, and most of it wasn't expired.”

Her favorite haunt is the Fresh Market's bins.

“I've catered parties from that Dumpster,” she said. “I once found a whole tray of chicken Caesar wraps, and a whole case of artichokes. For a poor college student, that was a boon.”

While Dumpster diving, or “skipping,” isn't something most of us do, it's become more common during the recession, according to www.allthingsfrugal.com.

“Dumpster diving has become very popular and is considered a great resource by many people,” the article states.

While the article says most will use a long pole to fish out goods, Joan said she puts on jeans and actually climbs into the trash cans.

Afraid of getting into trouble, Joan talked to the Fresh Market manager about her forays into finding foods.

“He wasn't happy about it,” she said.

Even so, Dumpster diving is not against the law, said Officer Brian Freeland with the Asheville Police Department. “In itself, it's not illegal, but it could be considered trespassing depending on the property it's on.”

Freeland said when people put their trash by the road, it's free territory for divers. But if the cans are next to the house, it's illegal for people to raid them.

Joan said during all of her years dipping for discards, she's never gotten sick from the food. While her favorite spot is the Fresh Market, she's also plunged into cans at Ingles and Amazing Savings.

Now that the Fresh Market has a trash compactor, her great finds there have been all but eliminated. Every now and then, she'll score something employees have set out that hasn't made the trip to the compactor.

During this entire decade of diving, she's been faced with the blue lights only once.

“I was in there with a couple of other broke friends, and first one police car came by,” she said. “Then four police cars came, and they questioned us for an hour and ran driver's license checks hoping we were criminals.”

Joan said plenty of people are “weirded and grossed out” by her actions.

“I invite those people to a Dumpster dinner,” she said.

While her diving was more frequent years ago, she and her husband still raid the bins on occasion.

“We go about every other month,” she said. “We're not as broke as we used to be, but I still like the idea of not throwing away food. I want to save it.

“It's such a waste, it's appalling.”

She believes store managers should put the goods on sale for half off instead of tossing them in the garbage before their time has come.

“We need to think about how much we waste,” she said. “Also, don't be afraid of something someone else has called garbage.”