Dumpster Diving to End World Hunger

‘Dumpster Diving’ is a very interesting idea that tends to gross many people out, including myself. I personally cannot imagine jumping into a dumpster to fish out peoples “treasures.” However, as the old saying goes, “another man’s trash, is another mans treasure,” I have come to learn that there is some truth in this.

What do you get when a group of people organize nation wide dumpster dives to help the needy and hungry? What do you get when companies over-exaggerate expiration dates and end up throwing away billons of dollars worth of perfectly good food? You end up with a disgustingly large number of perfectly good food thrown away and people taking a proactive stance to change that.

‘Food Not Bombs’ is an organization that does nation wide dumpster dives to “rescue” food from an unnaturally early demise. The food is found in containers, and often times the activists can get the food before it even hits the dumpsters. However, many grocery stores and companies are not okay with this because they aren’t making any money off of it. And in today’s day and age, who really is willing to give anything away for free without any strings attached to those who are in need? Trust me, there aren’t many. So why try and inhibit the few that do try from making a positive difference in the world?

My ‘Anthropology of Food’ class had the privilege of drinking juice saved from the dumpster, and trust me, it tasted just fine. It’s hard to imagine that billons of pounds of foods are simply tossed away while there are entire nations starving. It angers me that companies can be so selfish and not think about how they could be aiding the public instead of destroying resources. I personally hope to get involved with ‘Food Not Bombs’ and strongly encourage all those who do not wish to see people starve to take a look and perhaps a stance against the starvation of humanity.