I’ve never tried dumpster diving for food. While I’m intrigued by the idea, it honestly also scares me a bit. After watching a trailer (above) for a new 45-minute movie on the subject, called Dive!, Ryan Rodrick Beiler somewhat reluctantly discusses what has become his “primary (and free) food source,” in an interesting post on Sojourners’ blog. In it, he describes dumpster diving as an act of nonviolence and talks about his reasons for starting to dive in the first place:
Rescuing food from the landfill is both a delight and a duty. The amount of food that’s routinely discarded is overwhelming in both quantity and quality — almost magically so. And with the waste from the business of food production and distribution feeding our landfills better than many of our citizens, dumpster diving is one act of nonviolent civil resistance against the excesses of our corporate food chain.
If any of you have tried dumpster diving, let us know about your experience with it and whether you view it through the lens of nonviolence.
I think I’d rather cough up the money on the inside of the store. Perhaps some problems in the global distribution of wealth and food call for a systemic, rather than personal/dietary, response.
Personal/dietary response can certainly influence systemic change through market forces such as demand. If more people contribute to this effort, food producers would be forced to address their inefficiencies. Am I suggesting “freeganism,” as it is also called, will work? I honestly don’t know. Certainly not on its own. But I do know that movements benefit from greater diversity in tactics. This is just one of many that can and should be taken up by those brave (and perhaps weird) enough to do it.
On a personal/micro level, I can understand its attraction. There is a significant population of people who do it near me in Portland, ME. Not only can you find abundant, free and nutritious food… but it comes with a fresh, juvenile, stick-it-to-the-man sensation (especially when Whole Foods Market calls the cops on you while you robin-hood your loot to family and the local soup kitchen) and I think that empowers people in a radical, but nonviolent way.
There are lot of foods that are wasted and lot of people are needs food. We must be responsible and think all the things around us are very important. We should analyze the important of each things surrounds us.