A grocery store's throw-aways.
She pulled out seven of these just near the top. We suspect there may have been more. All were brand new, unused in the box and/or in plastic.
An office store dumpster stacked with recyclable calendars and planners for 2012. All will be thrown into a landfill.
The total loot for the night completely filling the back of the car.
Last night one of my fellow cagers graciously traded a shift so I was able to go out and work on my final project which is on (drum roll, please) dumpster diving!
Autumn has been working on starting a non-profit of sorts to go directly to the store managers and ask if she can take the food they'd otherwise throw away. There wouldn't be much difference from what she's doing now by distributing to families except she'd have a piece of paper with other organisations backing her and it would be much more in the open.
After last week when she was busted and barricaded in the back of a grocery store by three cops and basically told to not get caught officially, Autumn suspected there would be "no trespassing" signs and locks on the dumpsters. To her surprise however, she got one of the biggest loads of food yet plus the seven brand new food dehydrators. "Now I can dry and save the food we found for winter!" she exclaimed.
It's like this: we hear a lot about the growing gap between the upper and lower class, slowly eroding the middle class. Most "middle class" families have parents that work hard, at least two jobs within the family, and still can't pay the bills or just barely squeak by. With so much food being thrown away and the potential to save hundreds of dollars a month on food bills, it made a lot of sense to her to get out of the house for some moonlight diving.
So, what was in the dumpster? Hot dog rolls, pears, nectarines, bags of onions, 3 bags of potatoes, melons, meat (dated to expire the next day that was still cold 30 min. after being thrown out in 37 deg. F weather), cauliflower, broccoli, tri-colored peppers, 12 half-gallon bottles of 100% apple juice, 7 new food dehydrators, hot dogs, turkey dogs, a giant chunk of pork, spotted bananas, small bagged sweet peppers, cucumbers, and 10 boxes of Capri Suns.
Stay tuned and pray we don't get busted by the wrong cop.
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