Treasures in the trash

Can you cook daily meals without paying a penny? Can you make an exquisite dinner out of dumpster findings? What a weird idea!
Many of us think with a poorly concealed disgust, imagining the pitiful looking people who are forced to dive into the dirty trash bins for some miserable food scrapings. But thankfully, sometimes reality proves to be better than our imagination and prejudices. Nowadays, dumpster diving or freeganism, changed from the disreputable practice of the poor into a hip and trendy part of ‘green lifestyle’.

According to the official website of FreeganismMovement, modern dumpster divers are mainly environmentally and socially conscious young people who strive to "embrace community, social concern, freedom, and cooperation in opposition to a society based on materialism, moral apathy, competition, and greed”. Freegans employ alternative strategies for living based on limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources. Freegans literally look for the treasure – the clean and green world – in the dumpster, and… they do find it!

The main goal of freeganism, defined as an anti-consumeristic ethic about eating, is none other than saving the food; the perfectly good, tasty and fresh food, which is regularly thrown out by supermarkets, grocery stores and other retail suppliers for different reasons, all of which are quite far from food’s nutritional value or expiry date. By saving edible food from the dumpsters, freegans aim to avoid spending money on products that exploit the world's resources and try to reduce their ecological footprint.

Moreover, apart from all the sustainable values of dumpster diving, it is great fun! The freegan community ‘Save the Food Malmö’, which now numbers more than 100 people, is a perfect place not only to get a free meal, but also to get to know new outstanding people. Freegans regularly organize various interesting events. For example, they go on ‘diving dates’, where the more experienced divers mentor those who have never done it before. Also, Malmö divers have already had two official ‘Save the Food Dinners’, which Heather Oldby, the activist and creator of the community dreams to turn into regular practice.

“My personal dream would be to organize a group of engaged freegan volunteers and arrange a permit to access a big kitchen in Malmö and host Free-Food Evenings open to those in Malmö less fortunate and financially challenged citizens such as students, retired elderly and the unemployed. Hopefully one day this will be up and running...” - says Heather, and we can only wish her good luck!

“Join the Facebook group called ‘Save the Food Malmo’ and meet new friends who will be more than happy to be your guides on your first dive or refer you to the nearest dumpster in your neighbourhood”, adds the other freegan activist of Malmö, Jon Miren. And we can only repeat after him: “Take all the food but leave all fears and prejudices in the garbage!”

If you want to know more about freeganism, to get dumpster diving tips or to view the amazing photo exhibition on this topic just come to the “Sustainable People, Sustainable Business, Sustainable World” event and see how YOU can make this world better!