Students Turning to Bin-Raiding for Dinner

Students are diving into bins as a reaction to sheer quantity of waste that supermarkets throw into their bins which only then get sent to the landfill.

While Bin Divers in the UK are small groups of people who come together through word of mouth, in America, Freeganism is a movement where vegans are diving into the garbage as a protest against the consumerist society where consumers are encouraged to dispose of their food to increase the sales within supermarkets. With a website and forums, this organised movement and its anti-capitalist ideals encourage individuals to jump into rubbish and eat leftover food from stores.

Jo Barrow, a student from York University, wrote for the Independent about bin diving and she agreed with the American counterpart and even wrote how her diet was improved by the waste of the supermarkets. Barrow wrote about how she would eat quail’s eggs, Camembert and macaroons since these luxury products were disposed of by her local supermarket.

Some supermarkets lock their bins and others cover their bin bags in dye to deter bin divers. Rifling through rubbish is not a crime, but trespassing that is undertaken when getting to the bins is. To get involved and read more about the Freegans their website is: here. There is also an organisation called freecycle.org which is a free online exchange site that originated in Arizona but functions in the UK.