A trash can full of used supermarket products is used to anger Ann. Now he sees them as saviors

When she was working for a supermarket, Ann witnessed huge waste products being dumped at the end of each shift. He said employees can’t pick up wasted items at a cheaper price or for free.

“It makes me very angry. It makes me question the company’s approach to waste and their environmental impact,” he said.

“If stores want to dispose of edible products perfectly, we have to be able to pick them up and use them.”

Ann is new to trash diving and says it can be a lifesaver as she struggles to make ends meet. (provided)

Now Ann is one of the thousands of Australians struggling to keep food on the table as prices rise — and the bins behind those shops are up for looting.

“My daughter is ashamed of being ‘poor’ because all her school friends live in a big private house, and their parents drive expensive cars,” she said.

“We don’t live on the poverty line, but we live very simply, without the luxuries or advantages that people with more money can buy. We live in small government subsidized units, which are old and basic.”

Ann, who lives in Sydney, considers herself a novice when it comes to dumpster diving — but says it could be a lifesaver as she struggles financially.

“Knowing that retail giants, as well as smaller companies, throw out absurd amounts of trash every day, made me think I could use it to … stay afloat.

“Safe, environmentally friendly, this is not an act of desperation… We are not pests, we are the people who make choices.”

Divers become providers

At the other end of the spectrum is Brenden Rikihana, a lifelong trash diver.

Growing up in New Zealand in the 1970s, Brenden’s earliest memory of diving is of his mother telling him to jump into the open-air jump in the garden center to pick up garden plants and pots among other treasures.

“It’s not called dumpster diving, it’s called scavenging. In the 90s I worked as a chef and I collected food that was thrown out of our kitchen, it was still in good condition and very edible,” he said. .

“When I came to Australia in the early 2000s, I started picking up hard garbage by the roadside before finding retail and food chain stores.”

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Now Brenden documents his dives online, at Bin Living with Big B, with hundreds of thousands of followers.

“At first [I did it] to save money and get something for free… I’ve raised a family on other people’s trash. I repair, reuse and reuse what I find and feed my family with the food I save,” he said.

“Now it’s a service to the larger community… I donate almost all the food.

“Once I found 10 boxes of 25 kilograms of bananas, three trays of 5 kilograms of avocado, and 10 boxes of 10 kilograms of peaches in one trash can. I donated it to the food bank. [and it] feed 50 families.”

Supermarket food waste statistics reveal that 20 to 40 percent of fruits and vegetables are rejected before they even hit shelves, largely because of standards about their appearance. What’s more, businesses in Australia generate 2.5 million tonnes of organic waste every year.

According to the Foodbank’s annual hunger report, 1.2 million Australian children are starving in 2021 while one in six adults say they are not eating enough.

Of those respondents, nearly half said this meant a day without food at least once a week and nearly 40 percent said they had never experienced food insecurity before the pandemic.

Meanwhile, according to a report commissioned by the Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water, Australia wastes about 7.6 million tonnes of food per year.

Ronni Kahn is the founder and chief executive of OzHarvest — an organization that saves leftover food and supplies it to people in need. (Provided: OzHarvest)

OzHarvest founder and chief executive Ronni Kahn says access to fresh, nutritious and affordable food is a fundamental human right—and seeing families use trash can dives is a sad reflection that good food is still being wasted.

“OzHarvest is committed to working directly with as many food businesses as possible to ensure that edible food is donated and delivered directly and safely to people in need,” he said.

“Currently we save 250 tonnes of food a week from more than 3,000 businesses across the country.”

Feeding requests

Perth app developer Stuart Kidd believes corporate food retailers need to do more to prevent excess waste.

“Some people are sick of seeing the amount of trash that stores throw in the trash every day. Major retailers say they work closely with OzHarvest, Second Bite, and Food Bank, but what they donate is only scratching the surface of what’s being thrown away,” he said.

Stuart Kidd founded Foody Bag — a food waste organization that uses the app to redistribute leftovers from Perth businesses to the public.(Provided: Stuart Kidd)

“Food prices are rising rapidly and more parents are looking on googling ‘dive bins’ to make ends meet.”

Last year, Stuart founded Foody Bag — a food waste organization that uses the app to redistribute leftovers from Perth businesses to the public.

“With other food waste apps, retailers set an estimate of how much leftover food there will be the next day. If the next day is very busy … the food waste app cancels the order, which leaves food waste app customers disappointed,” he said. .

Foody Bag is different in that retailers only post what’s left in the afternoon and those items are allocated to customers when orders come through the app.

People can also use the app to deliver food from their own kitchen or fridge.

Data from FoodWise – the national campaign against food waste – shows about 18 per cent of all food purchased in Australia is thrown away, with 70 per cent of food that is disposed of being eaten perfectly.

Stuart explains that his platform will also make it easier for trash divers to deliver large quantities of food to people in need.

“Essentially, this feature will open a food highway for people who are struggling and need food quickly and can pick it up locally,” he said.

There’s no end in sight

As inflation grows and the wet weather on the east coast continues, access to affordable food will continue to be a problem.

Ronni Khan, from OzHarvest, said the cost of living crisis had created increased demand. A third of the charities OzHarvest supports say they are unable to meet current levels of food demand.

“One charity at Coffs Harbor said last month that it had gone from helping an average of 60 people per day to 90 – pointing to the inaccessibility of fuel, food, and particularly housing and rent,” he said.

Given the recent spike in food prices, the number of people attending the Waterloo OzHarvest market in downtown Sydney has risen from 1,400 to 1,700 a week — and many are struggling to make ends meet for the first time.

“Our recent community needs survey found that, on average, our charities report that 30 percent of their clients are new in the last six months,” Ronni said.

“There is a group of people seeking food support for the first time.”

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