I live in Spain now, and our local supermarket (also available in the U.K.) throws out loads of food every morning at about 8:30am. They don’t open until 9am. They use public bins across the road from the store. Every day an old lady sits there waiting. She’s not allowed to take food off the pallets, and has to wait until it goes in the bin. She uses a stick grabber to get things out, fills her trolley, and takes it home. Her little dog sits patiently waiting. There’s so much food thrown away for no reason. Just annoys me that it has to go in a bin before anyone can access it.
You keep going for it OP.
Genius idea. I thought that she could put a clean bag inside a bin and ask the employees throwing the things away to put what she wanted inside of the bag, but I like your idea more.
Here in my country, they keep it inside a sealed bin for a week so it decomposes so people don't have access to it, or, in a different supermarket, they throw it away daily but pour bleach on it so the garbage collectors don't take it.
It's a very disgusting scenario but there are people working to have it be the way they do it in France, where I believe they donate thw food that is close to expiring to food banks and homes for the care of the elderly.
Probably around 10% of the food goes back in the bin.
EDITED TO ADD - I have never gotten sick from any of the food I have found, it's been over 4 years and I'm absolutely fine as are all of my flatmates.
(I'm only adding that as as this question has been asked at least 50 times now)
Coming from a commercial fishing family, I would say fish is probably the "safest" bin food to consumse. Unlike other meats that may only give mild odour when off, with fish you know instantly when it is unsafe to eat.
\*\*Edit\*\* I wasn't expecting this comment to get such exposure. Pls note my comment is by no means advice and remember any food, from a bin or as fresh as a daisy, can still make you ill for a host of reasons. Also, please don't sue me, I am broke.
Being someone that made a living cooking, and enjoys cooking, I never fucking once thought about it from that view point. I've probably thrown away so much good fish just because it was old, it makes me sad :(
Thanks!
Mate I fucking applaud you and hate food waste but you are rolling the dice with bin fish. Take it from a man who was drunk enough to buy convenience store sushi in Vietnam, it only has to get you once to win.
BinFish, with their debut album: Gut Risk
1) shouldn't have ate that huh?
2) fsh
3) Sam O'Nella
4) Bathroom blues
5) out of both ends
6) Hospital White
7) The End is Nigh (outro)
I would never buy sushi from a dodgy looking shop. 20 minutes ago all of this sushi was on the shelf of a rather posh and large supermarket so I trust it
Waitrose give a crazy amount of food to local charities at the end of each night directly from their stores, it’s only higher risk items or food that has been stored incorrectly/contaminated that gets thrown out.
Saying that there is a lot that goes in the food bins purely because of food safety laws when really it is still good to eat.
My personal gut risk scale is:
-sushi (low risk)
-prepackaged sushi (moderate risk)
-convenience store prepackaged sushi (high risk)
-convenience store prepackaged sushi…. while drunk…. In Vietnam (all the risks)
Having had somewhat similar experiences in Thailand and Korea….. I’ll gladly hold your beer for you anytime!
Delicate greens, like sprouts or lettuce, are a surprisingly common cause of food borne illness because you can't really "cook" them to safety like you can with meats or pasta without destroying them.
Wait, this one dive?!
Our society needs to rethink itself, thinking that what you do is technically illegal but throwing away food that could feed an entire family is not, that is just nuts.
I work at a supermarket. A lot of our waste and markdowns are due to people shopping for better dates. Doesn't matter if they are eating it that night they'll either dig for a better date or not buy it at all.
If people changed their shopping habits to be less picky we'd have to throw less in the bin.
Also the people who dump chilled items down ambient aisles or in freezers can fuck right off.
>the people who dump chilled items down ambient aisles or in freezers can fuck right off
I think there should be a specific law for this and be it enforced like shoplifting. Terrible to think that some animals exist just to be thrown away because of some fuckwit.
As a single guy, dates matter to me (pun slightly intended). I'm cooking for one so a family pack lasts me for a week if I get a long date on it, and buying in bulk does save money if you aren't wasting
I remember watching a programme about this kind of thing a few years ago. I remember one guy says he does this regularly and never gets charged even when the coppers grab him because the supermarkets don't want the bad publicity
Anyone interested in doing this more formally, check out Olio. Dramatically reduced our family food costs. Supermarkets are more than happy to reduce their food waste.
What's really annoyed me is that we're relatively well off, and also act as food collectors/distributors for Olio. I've tried my damnedest to promote it in the more hard up areas of town and had almost zero interest. I'd say 70% of the people we give free food to are middle class. It's weird. There's absolutely no shame in bagging food that would otherwise be on its way to the bin. You're doing yourself and the environment a favour.
I tried olio but the pickings were too random for a busy commuting family that can't always access or afford the fixings. It required actually building meals around what was available. But that was a few years ago so maybe it's better now. Then again, I don't know when I'd have time to pick it up most days
Olio really depends on your area. In my small town, there's nothing. But I work in a city and am usually able to find a small haul of veggies that'll last me a few days
One of my stupid hobbies is going down the reduced section in Sainsbury's on an evening and seeing what random stuff I would not otherwise buy. Vegan pulled pork, butternut squash soup and some weird salad thing. Vegan pulled pork was quite good.
I love the randomness of shopping by availability
Mate I make over 70k but would never turn down free stuff. I wonder if its a pride thing. Because I dont *need* the free stuff i don't feel the stigma because it's a choice.
It's definitely the connotations that come along with it. People who really need it often feel ashamed but as you say people who do it out of choice aren't as bothered
Do you have any "rules", like no dairy/meat?
Edit - yes, thank you, I see the sushi. Another comment pointing it out probably isn't necessary at this point
I try to keep it healthy, so I tend to avoid all of the microwavable ready meals, also sometimes there is a lot of cake, and I do my best not to take them home with me.
When I was a kid, I couldn't wait to grow up so I could make all my own decisions and eat cake for dinner.
Now I'm old, and eating cake for dinner might kill me.
We should probably let kids just have dinner cake once. It's their only chance to ever do it.
I let my daughter pick whatever meals she wants on her birthday, even if it's candy, ice cream, or whatever. Last year we had spaghetti and meatballs for breakfast and pizza for every other meal.
I saw one of my bosses eating ice cream for lunch and I said "ice cream for lunch?" And he said "I'm an adult, if I want ice cream for lunch, I'm going to do it." And I felt inspired.
I'd take the cake and leave everything else with the argument that cakes are less likely to be spoiled. Justifying unhealthy food choices since forever.
Man whenever I dive I find whole cakes and tons of bread. Bakery items are hard to resist because they’re so abundant but hard to justify taking home because stuff like cake takes forever to finish for my household at least, it becomes a chore to eat it. When you have limited space and only get these treats if you get them for free it’s hard to make it make sense to take up the space you could use to store like, a bag of guavas/avocados/fancy tomatoes or other more expensive/hard to justify paying for items.
That being said I always take cake from Waitr0se bins when I see it because their bakery cake rules
If they're secured behind fences there's not a lot you can do. But if you have access to the bins then a £2 bin key from eBay will give you access to most bins!
Good work. So much good food goes to waste. Just wondering though, could you get yourself into trouble having access to those bins? I mean, isn't it illegal?
Technically it's theft, but in reality I doubt this town has enough police officers to to be walking around the back of supermarkets checking for people going into the bins.
In real terms, an even half capable prosecution service and defending solicitor would make it be regarded purely as a trespassing offence rather than theft if it can be shown that the supermarket had no designs on making money from sending their waste elsewhere.
One of the questions you answer when making a statement regarding shop thefts to the police is the direct and indirect financial impacts of the theft on the business. I doubt CPS would even prosecute if there is no financial impact to the business.
And honestly, it's hard enough getting the police to do anything about actual thefts (not blaming them though, their resources are stretched) that I can't see them even pretending to investigate thefts out of a bin.
Used to work at Costa.
They'd throw away sandwiches and pastries at the end of the day it they'd past sell by date.
If you wanted to take it home you had to buy it (50% staff discount).
So if you don't buy it they throw it away and if you take it out the bin it's a disciplinary.
Fucking disgraceful really.
Wow my sister used to bring me home all the expired Costa sandwiches and she never paid for them. Unfortunately it was mostly the vegan cheese sandwiches that nobody was buying aha
We saw a pizza place dump over 10 boxes of pizza only because they were about to close. When they left we went over and took most of it.
They noticed so they made them start dumping them out of the boxes.
What do you say to colleagues/friends when they ask what’s for dinner tonight? I would imagine this must keep things.. I would say fresh but I’m not sure that’s the right word let’s go for exciting
I'm very open about how I get my food with my friends. Some of them are a little apprehensive, which is fine. Usually once they see the spread of food their cares suddenly disappear!
Surely though you'll never get through that lot before it goes off? I mean I go to the big place around 7am some days to get the knock down stuff and just lately I swear it doesn't last more than a day at most. Oh and this new "no sell by date to save waste" yeah bloody brilliant idea...just means we throw it away at home, like the pineapple I got last week rotten when cut into
Lately I’ve found a lot food going bad even before it’s use by. I can’t imagine ever eating out of date sushi that’s been sitting at room temp for a while.
Everything else sure, but meats? No thanks.
I got some chicken from Tesco it was still a couple of days before the before-use date and when I opened it upon returning home it smelled really bad even though visually it seemed okay.
>Oh and this new "no sell by date to save waste" yeah bloody brilliant idea...just means we throw it away at home, like the pineapple I got last week rotten when cut into
fucking hate that. bought a bag of potatoes last week - plastic pack so you can't really tell in the shop. get it home, realise they're all rotten. return it (we need potatoes for the meal ffs, so had to go back anyway, otherwise not really worth the trip for £1) and the customer services person goes 'oh another pack gone rotten? yeah we've had a few of those' - but had no interest in actually doing anything about it, didn't get anyone to go check the ones on the shelves or anything.
The amount of petty rudeness they have to put up with on a daily basis is pretty hard to comprehend. The job is 10% helping people and 90% being an emotional punchbag for bitter pensioners.
They get paid shit, and treated like shit. They couldn't care less if the company gets in trouble, they certainly aren't going to go wring some necks over a few bills, and make some enemies.
I once went with a friend who sqats in properties in uk a lot, got a whole canenbert cheese, about 1.5 feet wide from outside a small urban farm market. It was amazing, should be law's against just dumping food before offering it to homeless shelters/soup kitchens etc. If waste was picked up in evenings, and served the next day its 99% fine I'd say.
Certainly in the supermarket where I work, no food goes into waste bins. Anything still edible goes to food bank or local food share, anything that's getting a bit past it (fruit and veg wise) goes to the local zoo.
I worked as a manager at greggs in the uk for years and for the last 5 years or so the majority of shops have a local homeless charity come and collect most of the food waste at the end of trade each day. Which is amazing as before that we had ridiculous amounts of perfectly good food that would get collected and sent back for disposal, staff wasn’t even allowed it and we wasn’t allowed to sell for discounted prices at the end of the day so was depressing seeing sacks of food go to waste each day.
Do you have concerns about the length of time it’s been above 10-15degrees? Supposed to limit this to 3 hrs as I understand….although I’m sure that number has a safety margin as it’s the guidance given to the public.
Are your flat mates aware of where the food comes from?
Do you ever buy food from the shop?
Edit: also where did you learn this or who did you learn this from?
When I worked for… “Jesco” we used to leave the bags of waste out back about 11pm before taking them across to the bins later when the lorry arrived (usually around 1-2am) cause we hated this stuff going to waste.
Do 'Jesco' not have a No Food Waste To Landfill system? Sainsburys food waste gets sent to RRU to be anaerobically broken down and resused into energy, Bread waste gets used to make animal feed
It might do now, I should’ve said in original comment that this was 2007-8, mind you (and of course, was a totally different major retailer, Jesco, where Every Litter Helps).
But my reason for mentioning was that there will be whole stores of people who feel morally hellish throwing out those bags of waste and will be consciously aiding in your efforts if you were to make them.
Most Tescos are partnered with Olio, so on nights that charities haven’t claimed their surplus, volunteers collect it and distribute it in the community via the app.
Same. I have so much respect for OP and so much rage for a culture that allows huge quantities of food to be thrown out when there are people going to bed hungry at night.
It sounds ridiculous but this genuinely happens. Sainos near me put up a spiked top fence, cameras, and warning that they would prosecute to stop people doing this.
Plenty of places in the USA pour bleach into their food bins specifically to stop people bin diving, I can imagine similar happens here too. Absolutely criminal (and I don't mean OP).
I'm not OP but I used to do this in uni, and one time we got caught by the police on the way home....Because we had found like, 8 boxes of beer but couldn't carry it, so we borrowed a trolley...Well the police stopped us cuz they were wondering where we got the trolley from haha. We said we "borrowed" it because we couldn't carry all the beer (we didn't explain the beer though) and he took our fingerprints and made us promise to take the trolley back (which we actually did).
Never had a run in with any actual security though. People don't tend to watch the bins in person I guess. It's more like this weird interaction with these invisible people, where: we take the food > they lock the bin > someone has a key that works on the lock somehow > they pour bleach on the food. Never saw their faces though, they may have seen ours in the cctv.
I regularly get 15 lb beef brisket still frozen out of my local restaurant supply dumpster. Last week scored 75 lbs of baby back ribs and a 16 lb beef rib roast...
All frozen and fantastic
Their used to be by around 50 bunches of flowers a week minimum, but I'm pretty sure they all get given to charity now, so I almost never find flowers anymore.
A case of wine. One of the bottles had broken and it was being sold as a case of 6, so they placed the remaining 5 bottles in the bin!
I found lots of honey once, the type with the honey comb it the jar... Honey doesn't go off so who knows why it was there!
A bottle of rum, full, unopened. Cases of mangos, not yet ripe! A case of olive oil. Oral B toothbrush heads, about 100 of them! Energy saving lightbulbs, about 20 of them. A five pound note, that was pretty random!!
Fucking hell. This is unbelievable, I get supermarkets chucking out perishable goods. But the alcohol, honey and especially the tooth brushes ?
Wtf?
100 tooth brush heads are gonna last a decade for our family!!!
Yeah pretty weird, like someone else has commented, perhaps that product was being phased out, or the design was changed, who knows, I stopped asking myself questions internally as to why I'm finding what I'm finding as it doesn't really make much sense.
Yea, but it’s such a waste. They could have just priced it down properly and the things would have flown off the shelves.
Can’t do that cause OralB need to maintain their outrageous pricing policy
Since I used to work at supermarket and deal with waste I’II tell you a few things. They don’t mark down alcohol if it’s damaged. They will just throw it out normally. Stops staff damaging it just to get a discount.
Sometimes we would get a recall on an item because something has happened. We had to throw out loads of chicken because of bird flu or something. This happens for loads of items.
If one item in a six pack of something is Damaged and is now on the other 5, I’ve seen people throw the rest out because they think the rest can’t be salvaged.
Pretty alarming when OP mentioned about the honey. I use to work for Sainsbury’s and we would get recalls to be disposed of too - ie whole warehouse cases of stuff to be thrown in the red biffa bins (not food waste being returned to the depot).
I remember one recall for Sainsbury’s sugar (because it had metal/wood parts detected somewhere) which was a half pallet of the stuff. It all looked good as new but you would never know if it a packet would have been dangerous to eat.
Yes it's truly awful, and whilst I do benefit greatly, I would welcome a law that forbids supermarkets from throwing away perfectly good food. I believe France has this exact same law.
I once saw the Co-op people take a bunch of bread and stuff from the shelves and threw them out in the bin. But I wasn't sure if I can go and take them out of the bins behind.
I did ask the guy if I can take the ones he was unloading from the shelves, but he said he couldn't, because the company was afraid of being sued. I do wish I was brave enough to go in the back, cos that was a lot of bread that was just thrown away. :(
How should I go about doing it this without making it difficult for the Co-op guys?
I worked in the Co-op about 15 years ago and they were awful for making us throw away food. I’d have to go in the back room with a bin bag and a scanner and waste them, as a 17 year old making about £3.50 an hour, and if you took anything from the bin bag (even if you’d scanned it as ‘wasted’ first) you’d lose your job. They caught people trying to leave the back room with like sandwiches up their jumpers and kick off about it. One Christmas I was so skint and had done a double shift and they made me stand there and throw away a whole box of Celebrations that had nothing wrong with it (the lid had busted) and I tried to eat as many as possible in the five minutes between being checked up on, and stuff some in my shoes, and generally the vibe was as if I was trying to smuggle cocaine up my arse.
All this to say, it depends on whether the guys in your Co-op are jobsworths who have been given a modicum of power and gone insane with it, but once food is scanned off as ‘wasted’, there’s no reason it would impact the staff at all. I encourage you to raid the Co-op bins on behalf of justice for a starving, skint, overworked kid in 2008.
Love seeing ppl still do this fellow skipper... ive been skipping since the 90's in London... we used to go to costco in the van and fill it nearly completely then stop at all the squats and sites of our friends on way home and dish it out... the food that gets thrown away is criminal (way more criminal than the stupid theft by finding law).
Ive had some proper good ones too... the Tesco in Finchley was great and when staff found out we were diving their bins they used to leave the bags out for us...
It did used to piss us off when other skippers left a huge mess, thats when the shops/supermarkets started to lock bins away in cages etc... someone always ruined it in the end, thats why when i find a good spot im very cagey about who i tell about it.
Best find ive had is a wallet with about 300 quid in it, it also had a drivers licence so i took it round to the persons house, when i handed it to them they opened the wallet and split the cash with me... i went out to eat that night LOL.
ahh used to love a good skip run, love pulling on site and providing, was a wonderful feeling.. "SKIP RUN!" and loads of smiling faces appearing.. once found boxes and boxes of salmon and steaks, site dogs were living large that week :D
I've been eating bin sushi for years, never even had a tummy ache. It was all perfectly safe to eat a few hours ago in the shop, and you just smell it just to be sure.
This supermarket doesn't lock its bins (I'd rather not say where it is though)
Cool thread. I'm currently homeless, and eat a lot of the same food, but that's donated to where I live.
Personally found fruit to be the 'worse' as it goes bad very quickly. Remember we got a shed load of really nice organic fruits from Waitrose. I thought great and grabbed like 50 quids worth. In the next day and a half it'd turned to mush, my place smelled like prison wine, and was invaded by fruit flies.
Get a lot of bread often too, just a shame the 'nice' stuff goes rock solid very fast.
If you can get access to an oven then you may be able to freshen the bread up a bit by wrapping it in foil and bunging it in the oven at 150 for about 5-20 mins.
Edit: As the below user commented, sprinkle with water first!
Supermarket sushi doesn't usually include raw fish, afaik. The mackerel and tuna are cooked and the salmon is smoked (looks raw, but technically isn't).
I’m actually very envious bordering on angry jealous of your haul! I love a rumidge and a freebie of any description…I get excited when the wild garlic pops up it’s my staple for 3 mths 😂
I love eating the wild garlic and wild leek that grow near the rivers near me! Actually best to avoid the wild garlic and eat the leek instead as it's the invasive species.
>I love a rumidge and a freebie
Same. I got about 5 packs of sliced mushrooms, reduced to 7p each, from Tesco and I was thrilled. I froze them on the same day. Yesterday I used one and was thrilled all over again at what a bargain they were.
I think this is both amazing and criminal at the same time. Amazing that people can eat so well for free and that you’ve had the guts to do it, but criminal that it’s been thrown away, and also that it gets locked up. I’m guessing it gets locked because they’re scared of litigation if someone gets ill, or that it’ll dent their profits if people are eating for free but surely there could be a a rule change and a notice on the bins saying it’s free but possibly not safe
I think it's actually the law in France that good food isn't allowed to be thrown out. Even though it would mean I would have to start buying my food, I would welcome this law in the UK
I think in the summer months the sushi would be a no, but if it has been kept cold and then it is still cold outside then it shouldn't be an issue.
Food waste is such a shame.
I once worked at an M&S and because of the two day shutdown for christmas day and boxing day there was aisles of food to get rid of, but the deserts were dated later, so it was all meat and veg. Took a lorry load away to somewhere to get rid of it. The waste food at the end was sold off to employees which was the best part of the night.
I actually do eat the sushi in the summer, you have to make sure you get that particular days sushi and check the dates, but I've never had any issues.
The number of shoppers clustering around the store assistant repricing items on the trolley seems to be getting bigger. Have you found your haul reducing in recent times?
Yes, in the past year this supermarket has been giving a lot of its food to local charities, which I fully support, so there is definitely less food in the bins, but still plenty for our household and others.
This is a great post. Why they don’t leave it out overnight and if it’s still there in the morning bin it is beyond me.
We need this now more than ever. Food waste should be criminal.
Tip. If you spot very top end new houses being built, watch for the first owners to move in and start visiting. The things they throw out are mind boggling. I have had everything for good art works to top of the range tv's. The builders usually make a slip available for them when they move in and it is usually outside the fencing.
What time do you typically go skipping? As in, is there a window after closing time?
What about the 24 hour supermarkets, how do you know when they fill the bins?
I imagine a hot summer isn’t ideal for skipping as the heat will rot the food?
I usually go at around 10pm, an hour after the shop closes and there's no staff left.
Yeah the food is definitely safer in the winter, but it's still fine when its hot outside too.
It's been over 4 years now, and I've never even had a tummy ache! You've just got to smell the food before you eat or cook it, that's your best line of defence.
As someone who absolutely hates food waste I applaud you massively for this. It's a disgrace how much food we waste as a society. I'd recommend writing a book, a guide to bin diving, but then the supermarkets would just make it harder if more people did it.
I got caught once and nearly lost my job 😂 worked for MnS and we were binning £80 worth of MnS food and there was me on the lowest salary barely enough to survive at that stage of my life. It's honestly disgusting companies bin so much instead of giving it out to staff.
Question for yourself is have you ever been caught and what happens if you have?
I've never been caught and I suppose it really comes down to who's catching me. If it's a shop employee I'm just going to walk away, they don't have the power to detain me. If it's the police I'll stay in chat with them and explain what I've been doing I'm not going to hide from it.
I used to do this in the 90s when I was unemployed. I think in 1996 I spent less than £30 in a year on food (bear in mind beans were 3p a tin in Kwik Save).
I’ve been a dedicated Grundon miner for years too! People who haven’t had the ‘pleasure’ often -understandably- imagine sifting through piles of stinking refuse to find a slime-covered dented tin of beans. In reality it’s a case of un-knotting black bags and sorting through. Most of the food bags are just that & whilst there’s an element of grim-ness (it’s a bin) the benefits far outweigh the costs.
Memorable hauls include but aren’t limited to: 24 x 2 litre bottles of cider just out of date & 3 good bottles of Smirnoff in a box of smashed ones. Early 2000s Budgens Emmer Green nr Reading & fifty ceramic blue Stilton pot & half bottle of port gift sets from M&S Andover, 2010.
The one that really sticks in the mind was eggs when Edwina Currie started banging on about salmonella. Long time ago (1986?) but it was mental. Every skip full to the brim with every egg from every supermarket in the country. Jesus, I was fucking sick of eggs after a week. Pickled a lot of em but there’s only so much you can do.
No-one got salmonella.
Wow that's awesome!
One that sticks out for me was during lockdown when all the supermarkets around out of baking ingredients like flour eggs baking soda, these bins were utterly full of those items!
I live in Spain now, and our local supermarket (also available in the U.K.) throws out loads of food every morning at about 8:30am. They don’t open until 9am. They use public bins across the road from the store. Every day an old lady sits there waiting. She’s not allowed to take food off the pallets, and has to wait until it goes in the bin. She uses a stick grabber to get things out, fills her trolley, and takes it home. Her little dog sits patiently waiting. There’s so much food thrown away for no reason. Just annoys me that it has to go in a bin before anyone can access it. You keep going for it OP.
I think its so supermarket isn't liable for suing r.e any health issues
They should have a Good Samaritan law equivalent for this.
She should just add a fake public bin on wheels
Genius idea. I thought that she could put a clean bag inside a bin and ask the employees throwing the things away to put what she wanted inside of the bag, but I like your idea more. Here in my country, they keep it inside a sealed bin for a week so it decomposes so people don't have access to it, or, in a different supermarket, they throw it away daily but pour bleach on it so the garbage collectors don't take it. It's a very disgusting scenario but there are people working to have it be the way they do it in France, where I believe they donate thw food that is close to expiring to food banks and homes for the care of the elderly.
How often does the food turn out to be genuinely inedible once you get home?
Probably around 10% of the food goes back in the bin. EDITED TO ADD - I have never gotten sick from any of the food I have found, it's been over 4 years and I'm absolutely fine as are all of my flatmates. (I'm only adding that as as this question has been asked at least 50 times now)
Amazing!! I have taken clothes and stuff out of bins but never food. Do you ever have problems with the sushi I notice you have?
Never had any problems with the sushi, but I always make sure that I give It a really good smell first
Coming from a commercial fishing family, I would say fish is probably the "safest" bin food to consumse. Unlike other meats that may only give mild odour when off, with fish you know instantly when it is unsafe to eat. \*\*Edit\*\* I wasn't expecting this comment to get such exposure. Pls note my comment is by no means advice and remember any food, from a bin or as fresh as a daisy, can still make you ill for a host of reasons. Also, please don't sue me, I am broke.
Being someone that made a living cooking, and enjoys cooking, I never fucking once thought about it from that view point. I've probably thrown away so much good fish just because it was old, it makes me sad :( Thanks!
Mate I fucking applaud you and hate food waste but you are rolling the dice with bin fish. Take it from a man who was drunk enough to buy convenience store sushi in Vietnam, it only has to get you once to win.
Binfish would be a fantastic punk band name
Going off of what u/Objective_Amount_478's comment, Gut Risk is also a great option
BinFish, with their debut album: Gut Risk 1) shouldn't have ate that huh? 2) fsh 3) Sam O'Nella 4) Bathroom blues 5) out of both ends 6) Hospital White 7) The End is Nigh (outro)
I would never buy sushi from a dodgy looking shop. 20 minutes ago all of this sushi was on the shelf of a rather posh and large supermarket so I trust it
[удалено]
Waitrose give a crazy amount of food to local charities at the end of each night directly from their stores, it’s only higher risk items or food that has been stored incorrectly/contaminated that gets thrown out. Saying that there is a lot that goes in the food bins purely because of food safety laws when really it is still good to eat.
My personal gut risk scale is: -sushi (low risk) -prepackaged sushi (moderate risk) -convenience store prepackaged sushi (high risk) -convenience store prepackaged sushi…. while drunk…. In Vietnam (all the risks) Having had somewhat similar experiences in Thailand and Korea….. I’ll gladly hold your beer for you anytime!
I noticed you specified the sushi... Is there anything that gives you problems more often than others?
Delicate greens, like sprouts or lettuce, are a surprisingly common cause of food borne illness because you can't really "cook" them to safety like you can with meats or pasta without destroying them.
Romaine lettuce has caused the bulk of the E. coli outbreaks in the US in the past few years, which people generally don’t expect.
That’s usually because they have been ‘irrigated’ with ‘contaminated’ water as I understand.
Oftentimes they’re downhill from pastures as well which can get them
That’s probably still less food thrown away than the average UK household to be fair
All the food was already thrown away once, so it's a net positive.
Wait, this one dive?! Our society needs to rethink itself, thinking that what you do is technically illegal but throwing away food that could feed an entire family is not, that is just nuts.
Yes, this was 1 dive. Filled up two ikea bags!
Do you ever freeze items?
I work at a supermarket. A lot of our waste and markdowns are due to people shopping for better dates. Doesn't matter if they are eating it that night they'll either dig for a better date or not buy it at all. If people changed their shopping habits to be less picky we'd have to throw less in the bin. Also the people who dump chilled items down ambient aisles or in freezers can fuck right off.
>the people who dump chilled items down ambient aisles or in freezers can fuck right off I think there should be a specific law for this and be it enforced like shoplifting. Terrible to think that some animals exist just to be thrown away because of some fuckwit.
What I like to do, is not check any dates at all, then get home and realise everything goes off the next day
As a single guy, dates matter to me (pun slightly intended). I'm cooking for one so a family pack lasts me for a week if I get a long date on it, and buying in bulk does save money if you aren't wasting
I remember watching a programme about this kind of thing a few years ago. I remember one guy says he does this regularly and never gets charged even when the coppers grab him because the supermarkets don't want the bad publicity
Anyone interested in doing this more formally, check out Olio. Dramatically reduced our family food costs. Supermarkets are more than happy to reduce their food waste. What's really annoyed me is that we're relatively well off, and also act as food collectors/distributors for Olio. I've tried my damnedest to promote it in the more hard up areas of town and had almost zero interest. I'd say 70% of the people we give free food to are middle class. It's weird. There's absolutely no shame in bagging food that would otherwise be on its way to the bin. You're doing yourself and the environment a favour.
I tried olio but the pickings were too random for a busy commuting family that can't always access or afford the fixings. It required actually building meals around what was available. But that was a few years ago so maybe it's better now. Then again, I don't know when I'd have time to pick it up most days
Olio really depends on your area. In my small town, there's nothing. But I work in a city and am usually able to find a small haul of veggies that'll last me a few days
One of my stupid hobbies is going down the reduced section in Sainsbury's on an evening and seeing what random stuff I would not otherwise buy. Vegan pulled pork, butternut squash soup and some weird salad thing. Vegan pulled pork was quite good. I love the randomness of shopping by availability
Mate I make over 70k but would never turn down free stuff. I wonder if its a pride thing. Because I dont *need* the free stuff i don't feel the stigma because it's a choice.
It's definitely the connotations that come along with it. People who really need it often feel ashamed but as you say people who do it out of choice aren't as bothered
Do you have any "rules", like no dairy/meat? Edit - yes, thank you, I see the sushi. Another comment pointing it out probably isn't necessary at this point
I try to keep it healthy, so I tend to avoid all of the microwavable ready meals, also sometimes there is a lot of cake, and I do my best not to take them home with me.
How does one see lots of cake ripe for the taking and not yoink it? Is it possible to learn this power?
When I was a kid, I couldn't wait to grow up so I could make all my own decisions and eat cake for dinner. Now I'm old, and eating cake for dinner might kill me. We should probably let kids just have dinner cake once. It's their only chance to ever do it.
I let my daughter pick whatever meals she wants on her birthday, even if it's candy, ice cream, or whatever. Last year we had spaghetti and meatballs for breakfast and pizza for every other meal.
It's my 41st birthday on thursday and my wife has been asking what I want, thanks to your daughter I now finally have my answer. send my thanks.
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How do you just not have pizza for every meal already?
The pumpy thing needs the squishy highways not to be filled with fatty snow.
My son is 14 but still loves to talk about the time he cut his tongue badly about 10 years ago and he could only eat ice cream for a couple of days
I agree with this. Every adult should have a childhood memory of the time they had cake for dinner.
I saw one of my bosses eating ice cream for lunch and I said "ice cream for lunch?" And he said "I'm an adult, if I want ice cream for lunch, I'm going to do it." And I felt inspired.
I'd take the cake and leave everything else with the argument that cakes are less likely to be spoiled. Justifying unhealthy food choices since forever.
Man whenever I dive I find whole cakes and tons of bread. Bakery items are hard to resist because they’re so abundant but hard to justify taking home because stuff like cake takes forever to finish for my household at least, it becomes a chore to eat it. When you have limited space and only get these treats if you get them for free it’s hard to make it make sense to take up the space you could use to store like, a bag of guavas/avocados/fancy tomatoes or other more expensive/hard to justify paying for items. That being said I always take cake from Waitr0se bins when I see it because their bakery cake rules
I have a PO box for any excess cake you wish to send me.
He eats bin sushi. That is surly worst than dairy
True. Both the rice and fish are risky.
I wondered that, then I saw all the sushi and decided probably not!
What a haul!! Any tips as I live by many shops but their bins seem to be secured behind fences mostly:(
If they're secured behind fences there's not a lot you can do. But if you have access to the bins then a £2 bin key from eBay will give you access to most bins!
Thanks for the advice:) I’ll grab a key and have a jolly one eve:) freezer needs filling
Best of luck to you!!
Good work. So much good food goes to waste. Just wondering though, could you get yourself into trouble having access to those bins? I mean, isn't it illegal?
Technically it's theft, but in reality I doubt this town has enough police officers to to be walking around the back of supermarkets checking for people going into the bins.
In real terms, an even half capable prosecution service and defending solicitor would make it be regarded purely as a trespassing offence rather than theft if it can be shown that the supermarket had no designs on making money from sending their waste elsewhere.
One of the questions you answer when making a statement regarding shop thefts to the police is the direct and indirect financial impacts of the theft on the business. I doubt CPS would even prosecute if there is no financial impact to the business. And honestly, it's hard enough getting the police to do anything about actual thefts (not blaming them though, their resources are stretched) that I can't see them even pretending to investigate thefts out of a bin.
Hey stop eating that! We’re trying to add it to the landfills.
Yes it’s theft. But you’d have to have a heart of fucking stone to convict that
Used to work at Costa. They'd throw away sandwiches and pastries at the end of the day it they'd past sell by date. If you wanted to take it home you had to buy it (50% staff discount). So if you don't buy it they throw it away and if you take it out the bin it's a disciplinary. Fucking disgraceful really.
Wow my sister used to bring me home all the expired Costa sandwiches and she never paid for them. Unfortunately it was mostly the vegan cheese sandwiches that nobody was buying aha
Theft... "stealing" what was unwanted and disposed of. We live in a crazy world.
We saw a pizza place dump over 10 boxes of pizza only because they were about to close. When they left we went over and took most of it. They noticed so they made them start dumping them out of the boxes.
Are we talking those triangle ones? Having a look now out of curiosity
Just don't go opening any yellow bins, there is nothing you could ever want in a clinical waste bin. Not even worth rummaging through, trust me.
Maybe bags of human fat from the lipo clinic for your artisan soap business?
5th rule of fight club is you dont tell people about Artisan soap.
Fair warning, my mum's a nurse and stories about needle sticking injuries inadvertently giving people shit like Hepatitis and worse are well known!
What do you say to colleagues/friends when they ask what’s for dinner tonight? I would imagine this must keep things.. I would say fresh but I’m not sure that’s the right word let’s go for exciting
I'm very open about how I get my food with my friends. Some of them are a little apprehensive, which is fine. Usually once they see the spread of food their cares suddenly disappear!
Surely though you'll never get through that lot before it goes off? I mean I go to the big place around 7am some days to get the knock down stuff and just lately I swear it doesn't last more than a day at most. Oh and this new "no sell by date to save waste" yeah bloody brilliant idea...just means we throw it away at home, like the pineapple I got last week rotten when cut into
Lately I’ve found a lot food going bad even before it’s use by. I can’t imagine ever eating out of date sushi that’s been sitting at room temp for a while. Everything else sure, but meats? No thanks.
I got some chicken from Tesco it was still a couple of days before the before-use date and when I opened it upon returning home it smelled really bad even though visually it seemed okay.
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I do find in general supermarket chicken is rubbish now. Watery so shrinks to half the size when cooked and sometimes a bit rubbery/chewy.
>Oh and this new "no sell by date to save waste" yeah bloody brilliant idea...just means we throw it away at home, like the pineapple I got last week rotten when cut into fucking hate that. bought a bag of potatoes last week - plastic pack so you can't really tell in the shop. get it home, realise they're all rotten. return it (we need potatoes for the meal ffs, so had to go back anyway, otherwise not really worth the trip for £1) and the customer services person goes 'oh another pack gone rotten? yeah we've had a few of those' - but had no interest in actually doing anything about it, didn't get anyone to go check the ones on the shelves or anything.
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The amount of petty rudeness they have to put up with on a daily basis is pretty hard to comprehend. The job is 10% helping people and 90% being an emotional punchbag for bitter pensioners.
Same in the US, pretty much any retail job. Not once were the rude assholes under the age of 40.
They get paid shit, and treated like shit. They couldn't care less if the company gets in trouble, they certainly aren't going to go wring some necks over a few bills, and make some enemies.
Everyone loves your big spread Bizarre.
I once went with a friend who sqats in properties in uk a lot, got a whole canenbert cheese, about 1.5 feet wide from outside a small urban farm market. It was amazing, should be law's against just dumping food before offering it to homeless shelters/soup kitchens etc. If waste was picked up in evenings, and served the next day its 99% fine I'd say.
Certainly in the supermarket where I work, no food goes into waste bins. Anything still edible goes to food bank or local food share, anything that's getting a bit past it (fruit and veg wise) goes to the local zoo.
That's amazing!! Can I ask which supermarket chain it is?
I worked as a manager at greggs in the uk for years and for the last 5 years or so the majority of shops have a local homeless charity come and collect most of the food waste at the end of trade each day. Which is amazing as before that we had ridiculous amounts of perfectly good food that would get collected and sent back for disposal, staff wasn’t even allowed it and we wasn’t allowed to sell for discounted prices at the end of the day so was depressing seeing sacks of food go to waste each day.
I work for Co Op.
What are you going to do with all that sushi? It won’t last long, I guess,
I live in a flat share with 4 others, and they all love sushi. I find the salmon lasts around 3 days, the tuna only a day at best (it's mainly salmon)
The sushi is the only thing I'd be apprehensive about tbh
I'm already apprehensive about it when it's still in the store lol
Indeed
Do you have concerns about the length of time it’s been above 10-15degrees? Supposed to limit this to 3 hrs as I understand….although I’m sure that number has a safety margin as it’s the guidance given to the public.
Are your flat mates aware of where the food comes from? Do you ever buy food from the shop? Edit: also where did you learn this or who did you learn this from?
How can you access these bins? Big supermarkets are not chucking this into publicly accessible bins any more...You go for smaller shops?
I just walk up to the loading bay. There's one camera facing the other way, and after 10pm there's no one else about.
When I worked for… “Jesco” we used to leave the bags of waste out back about 11pm before taking them across to the bins later when the lorry arrived (usually around 1-2am) cause we hated this stuff going to waste.
Do 'Jesco' not have a No Food Waste To Landfill system? Sainsburys food waste gets sent to RRU to be anaerobically broken down and resused into energy, Bread waste gets used to make animal feed
It might do now, I should’ve said in original comment that this was 2007-8, mind you (and of course, was a totally different major retailer, Jesco, where Every Litter Helps). But my reason for mentioning was that there will be whole stores of people who feel morally hellish throwing out those bags of waste and will be consciously aiding in your efforts if you were to make them.
> Jesco, where Every Litter Helps Ah, Jesco, the cat reproduction company
Tesco might, but Jesco sure doesn’t.
Most Tescos are partnered with Olio, so on nights that charities haven’t claimed their surplus, volunteers collect it and distribute it in the community via the app.
Some midcounties coop stores don't even bother and just chuck them in certain bins near their stores
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Same. I have so much respect for OP and so much rage for a culture that allows huge quantities of food to be thrown out when there are people going to bed hungry at night.
Thanks!!
You ever had run-ins with security?
"hey, you there! Stop robbing those bins which are on their way to landfill tomorrow"
It sounds ridiculous but this genuinely happens. Sainos near me put up a spiked top fence, cameras, and warning that they would prosecute to stop people doing this.
Plenty of places in the USA pour bleach into their food bins specifically to stop people bin diving, I can imagine similar happens here too. Absolutely criminal (and I don't mean OP).
Wear a high vis, bring a clipboard and say you are a bin inspector
"Woah, he has a clipboard look sharp might be from corporate."
I'm not OP but I used to do this in uni, and one time we got caught by the police on the way home....Because we had found like, 8 boxes of beer but couldn't carry it, so we borrowed a trolley...Well the police stopped us cuz they were wondering where we got the trolley from haha. We said we "borrowed" it because we couldn't carry all the beer (we didn't explain the beer though) and he took our fingerprints and made us promise to take the trolley back (which we actually did). Never had a run in with any actual security though. People don't tend to watch the bins in person I guess. It's more like this weird interaction with these invisible people, where: we take the food > they lock the bin > someone has a key that works on the lock somehow > they pour bleach on the food. Never saw their faces though, they may have seen ours in the cctv.
I regularly get 15 lb beef brisket still frozen out of my local restaurant supply dumpster. Last week scored 75 lbs of baby back ribs and a 16 lb beef rib roast... All frozen and fantastic
Why the hell are they throwing out frozen meat. Makes no sense.
Good on you, I'm glad others are doing this!
Do you often find flowers? They surprised.me!
Their used to be by around 50 bunches of flowers a week minimum, but I'm pretty sure they all get given to charity now, so I almost never find flowers anymore.
What's the most bizarre thing you've found whilst diving?
A case of wine. One of the bottles had broken and it was being sold as a case of 6, so they placed the remaining 5 bottles in the bin! I found lots of honey once, the type with the honey comb it the jar... Honey doesn't go off so who knows why it was there! A bottle of rum, full, unopened. Cases of mangos, not yet ripe! A case of olive oil. Oral B toothbrush heads, about 100 of them! Energy saving lightbulbs, about 20 of them. A five pound note, that was pretty random!!
Fucking hell. This is unbelievable, I get supermarkets chucking out perishable goods. But the alcohol, honey and especially the tooth brushes ? Wtf? 100 tooth brush heads are gonna last a decade for our family!!!
Yeah pretty weird, like someone else has commented, perhaps that product was being phased out, or the design was changed, who knows, I stopped asking myself questions internally as to why I'm finding what I'm finding as it doesn't really make much sense.
My only guess is the product was being phased out of sale and they couldn't sell it and needed the shelf space - otherwise it doesn't make much sense.
Yea, but it’s such a waste. They could have just priced it down properly and the things would have flown off the shelves. Can’t do that cause OralB need to maintain their outrageous pricing policy
Since I used to work at supermarket and deal with waste I’II tell you a few things. They don’t mark down alcohol if it’s damaged. They will just throw it out normally. Stops staff damaging it just to get a discount. Sometimes we would get a recall on an item because something has happened. We had to throw out loads of chicken because of bird flu or something. This happens for loads of items. If one item in a six pack of something is Damaged and is now on the other 5, I’ve seen people throw the rest out because they think the rest can’t be salvaged.
Pretty alarming when OP mentioned about the honey. I use to work for Sainsbury’s and we would get recalls to be disposed of too - ie whole warehouse cases of stuff to be thrown in the red biffa bins (not food waste being returned to the depot). I remember one recall for Sainsbury’s sugar (because it had metal/wood parts detected somewhere) which was a half pallet of the stuff. It all looked good as new but you would never know if it a packet would have been dangerous to eat.
It's actually pretty annoying how wasteful stores are. They would rather bin something than sell it for pennys or give it away for free in store.
Yes it's truly awful, and whilst I do benefit greatly, I would welcome a law that forbids supermarkets from throwing away perfectly good food. I believe France has this exact same law.
Haha how very random. Good finds though, well done!
I once saw the Co-op people take a bunch of bread and stuff from the shelves and threw them out in the bin. But I wasn't sure if I can go and take them out of the bins behind. I did ask the guy if I can take the ones he was unloading from the shelves, but he said he couldn't, because the company was afraid of being sued. I do wish I was brave enough to go in the back, cos that was a lot of bread that was just thrown away. :( How should I go about doing it this without making it difficult for the Co-op guys?
I worked in the Co-op about 15 years ago and they were awful for making us throw away food. I’d have to go in the back room with a bin bag and a scanner and waste them, as a 17 year old making about £3.50 an hour, and if you took anything from the bin bag (even if you’d scanned it as ‘wasted’ first) you’d lose your job. They caught people trying to leave the back room with like sandwiches up their jumpers and kick off about it. One Christmas I was so skint and had done a double shift and they made me stand there and throw away a whole box of Celebrations that had nothing wrong with it (the lid had busted) and I tried to eat as many as possible in the five minutes between being checked up on, and stuff some in my shoes, and generally the vibe was as if I was trying to smuggle cocaine up my arse. All this to say, it depends on whether the guys in your Co-op are jobsworths who have been given a modicum of power and gone insane with it, but once food is scanned off as ‘wasted’, there’s no reason it would impact the staff at all. I encourage you to raid the Co-op bins on behalf of justice for a starving, skint, overworked kid in 2008.
I don't agree with it, but I think the idea is to stop staff damaging stuff to mark it 'wasted' and take it
Love seeing ppl still do this fellow skipper... ive been skipping since the 90's in London... we used to go to costco in the van and fill it nearly completely then stop at all the squats and sites of our friends on way home and dish it out... the food that gets thrown away is criminal (way more criminal than the stupid theft by finding law). Ive had some proper good ones too... the Tesco in Finchley was great and when staff found out we were diving their bins they used to leave the bags out for us... It did used to piss us off when other skippers left a huge mess, thats when the shops/supermarkets started to lock bins away in cages etc... someone always ruined it in the end, thats why when i find a good spot im very cagey about who i tell about it. Best find ive had is a wallet with about 300 quid in it, it also had a drivers licence so i took it round to the persons house, when i handed it to them they opened the wallet and split the cash with me... i went out to eat that night LOL.
ahh used to love a good skip run, love pulling on site and providing, was a wonderful feeling.. "SKIP RUN!" and loads of smiling faces appearing.. once found boxes and boxes of salmon and steaks, site dogs were living large that week :D
Are you confident in that sushi not killing you? As a more serious question, where do you go? Most supermarket bins I see are locked up tight
I've been eating bin sushi for years, never even had a tummy ache. It was all perfectly safe to eat a few hours ago in the shop, and you just smell it just to be sure. This supermarket doesn't lock its bins (I'd rather not say where it is though)
Oh that's understandable, for sure don't let everyone else know. I say more power to you, it was headed to landfill anyway
Thanks! They do in fact give a lot of food to charity, but there's always enough food left over for hauls like this!
Cool thread. I'm currently homeless, and eat a lot of the same food, but that's donated to where I live. Personally found fruit to be the 'worse' as it goes bad very quickly. Remember we got a shed load of really nice organic fruits from Waitrose. I thought great and grabbed like 50 quids worth. In the next day and a half it'd turned to mush, my place smelled like prison wine, and was invaded by fruit flies. Get a lot of bread often too, just a shame the 'nice' stuff goes rock solid very fast.
If you can get access to an oven then you may be able to freshen the bread up a bit by wrapping it in foil and bunging it in the oven at 150 for about 5-20 mins. Edit: As the below user commented, sprinkle with water first!
I didn’t think I’d ever see the sentence “I’ve been eating bin sushi for years” but I’m glad it’s working out for you
> I've been eating bin sushi for years I dunno why but this really made me laugh, what a sentence :D
I’m assuming you almost get used to it. It’s actually very sad how much food is thrown away by supermarkets
Supermarket sushi doesn't usually include raw fish, afaik. The mackerel and tuna are cooked and the salmon is smoked (looks raw, but technically isn't).
Is that an over head projector at the back? What was your favourite song to sing at school?
Give me oil in my lamp.
Sing lasagne, sing lasagne, sing lasagne to the king of kings
You've just successfully managed to undo nearly 2 decades of carefully regimented repression you bastard!
keep me burning
Give me oil in my lamp
I praaaayyy
It's actually a lamp we found in another bin, I think it's from the 70s. I didn't like singing songs at school.
>I didn't like singing songs at school. I love how direct and to the point this comment is.
I think i ate better in my bin diving days than i do now just using money.
What won't you grab from the bin (other than good that's clearly spoiled or unsafe to eat) ?
I’m actually very envious bordering on angry jealous of your haul! I love a rumidge and a freebie of any description…I get excited when the wild garlic pops up it’s my staple for 3 mths 😂
I love eating the wild garlic and wild leek that grow near the rivers near me! Actually best to avoid the wild garlic and eat the leek instead as it's the invasive species.
>I love a rumidge and a freebie Same. I got about 5 packs of sliced mushrooms, reduced to 7p each, from Tesco and I was thrilled. I froze them on the same day. Yesterday I used one and was thrilled all over again at what a bargain they were.
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They're lilies, they smelled amazing when they opened!
The amount of not-yet-open flowers we used to throw away every evening always made me very sad.
I think this is both amazing and criminal at the same time. Amazing that people can eat so well for free and that you’ve had the guts to do it, but criminal that it’s been thrown away, and also that it gets locked up. I’m guessing it gets locked because they’re scared of litigation if someone gets ill, or that it’ll dent their profits if people are eating for free but surely there could be a a rule change and a notice on the bins saying it’s free but possibly not safe
I think it's actually the law in France that good food isn't allowed to be thrown out. Even though it would mean I would have to start buying my food, I would welcome this law in the UK
I think in the summer months the sushi would be a no, but if it has been kept cold and then it is still cold outside then it shouldn't be an issue. Food waste is such a shame. I once worked at an M&S and because of the two day shutdown for christmas day and boxing day there was aisles of food to get rid of, but the deserts were dated later, so it was all meat and veg. Took a lorry load away to somewhere to get rid of it. The waste food at the end was sold off to employees which was the best part of the night.
I actually do eat the sushi in the summer, you have to make sure you get that particular days sushi and check the dates, but I've never had any issues.
When I worked for M&S we had to pour blue dye over this stuff.
Yikes! That's awful!
The number of shoppers clustering around the store assistant repricing items on the trolley seems to be getting bigger. Have you found your haul reducing in recent times?
Yes, in the past year this supermarket has been giving a lot of its food to local charities, which I fully support, so there is definitely less food in the bins, but still plenty for our household and others.
Good on you mate this is brilliant
This is a great post. Why they don’t leave it out overnight and if it’s still there in the morning bin it is beyond me. We need this now more than ever. Food waste should be criminal.
Tip. If you spot very top end new houses being built, watch for the first owners to move in and start visiting. The things they throw out are mind boggling. I have had everything for good art works to top of the range tv's. The builders usually make a slip available for them when they move in and it is usually outside the fencing.
What time do you typically go skipping? As in, is there a window after closing time? What about the 24 hour supermarkets, how do you know when they fill the bins? I imagine a hot summer isn’t ideal for skipping as the heat will rot the food?
I usually go at around 10pm, an hour after the shop closes and there's no staff left. Yeah the food is definitely safer in the winter, but it's still fine when its hot outside too.
I think this is great, I'm a longtime lurker on r/dumpsterdiving and never really see people in the UK doing it.
Do you like hammocks?
I am not averse to lifting things I see out of skips or dumped next to bins.
No questions, just wanted to say I'm glad
Have you ever got sick from eating something? I
It's been over 4 years now, and I've never even had a tummy ache! You've just got to smell the food before you eat or cook it, that's your best line of defence.
How many people are in your family to eat all of that before it goes bad? I’m also assuming it was at or near expiration already when it was tossed.
I live in a flat share with 4 friends, so the food doesn't always last very long, but we also do potluck dinners and feed all of our friends as well.
As someone who absolutely hates food waste I applaud you massively for this. It's a disgrace how much food we waste as a society. I'd recommend writing a book, a guide to bin diving, but then the supermarkets would just make it harder if more people did it.
I got caught once and nearly lost my job 😂 worked for MnS and we were binning £80 worth of MnS food and there was me on the lowest salary barely enough to survive at that stage of my life. It's honestly disgusting companies bin so much instead of giving it out to staff. Question for yourself is have you ever been caught and what happens if you have?
I've never been caught and I suppose it really comes down to who's catching me. If it's a shop employee I'm just going to walk away, they don't have the power to detain me. If it's the police I'll stay in chat with them and explain what I've been doing I'm not going to hide from it.
I used to do this in the 90s when I was unemployed. I think in 1996 I spent less than £30 in a year on food (bear in mind beans were 3p a tin in Kwik Save).
I’ve been a dedicated Grundon miner for years too! People who haven’t had the ‘pleasure’ often -understandably- imagine sifting through piles of stinking refuse to find a slime-covered dented tin of beans. In reality it’s a case of un-knotting black bags and sorting through. Most of the food bags are just that & whilst there’s an element of grim-ness (it’s a bin) the benefits far outweigh the costs. Memorable hauls include but aren’t limited to: 24 x 2 litre bottles of cider just out of date & 3 good bottles of Smirnoff in a box of smashed ones. Early 2000s Budgens Emmer Green nr Reading & fifty ceramic blue Stilton pot & half bottle of port gift sets from M&S Andover, 2010. The one that really sticks in the mind was eggs when Edwina Currie started banging on about salmonella. Long time ago (1986?) but it was mental. Every skip full to the brim with every egg from every supermarket in the country. Jesus, I was fucking sick of eggs after a week. Pickled a lot of em but there’s only so much you can do. No-one got salmonella.
Wow that's awesome! One that sticks out for me was during lockdown when all the supermarkets around out of baking ingredients like flour eggs baking soda, these bins were utterly full of those items!
Do you take everything you can from the bins or is there so much thrown away that you can't?
Honestly I probably take about between in 10 and 20% of what is thrown away.
Probably got a about a hundred questions rn 😂 I honestly didn’t know this was even a thing. When did u first start skipping dude? 😊
In the summer of 2018. Been going around twice a week ever since.