We never wasted food when I lived at home with my parents in Slovakia. We grew our own vegetables and fruits and made jams and pickles from leftovers. Our food waste went to my grandma’s chickens over the road, or was put into compost bins. We were environmentally friendly, but I’d never heard of a dumpster diver then – or considered trying to save the planet.
But, when I was about 18, after I spent a summer season working in mountain chalets in High Tatras, Slovakia, where I met others who were environmentally friendly and connected to nature, I decided I wanted to study environmental management, rather than economics.
It’s around this time that I also first spotted a dumpster diving video on YouTube. I remember seeing somebody clambering in and out of a bin – and returning with loads of good food. I started searching the internet for more dumpster diver content on places like Facebook. In America, dumpster divers were getting everything from furniture, outdoor equipment and clothing, but in Europe, it was mainly food.
At first, I was totally shocked by the amount of good quality food being wasted – and I wanted to go and see for myself whether it was true or not. I had a place to study in a business school in Aarhus, Denmark, and as soon as I arrived, I found the closest supermarket to get food, not to go shopping down the aisles, but to check out the bins.
I cycled 10 minutes down the road late at night because I wanted to remain invisible. I’d done a dumpster dive in Vienna a few months beforehand after finding a group of dumpster divers out there on Facebook, but it was my first time doing it in Denmark. I was scared of what people would think. I didn’t know the rules – it was only my first day.
I found a ready-made cake with jam in the middle and covered in white icing sugar – and I took it home and ate it along with a few other items I’d picked up in the bin. I wasn’t dumpster diving because I couldn’t afford to go and buy food; it was because I was curious after seeing so many dumpster diver posts and videos.
The next day, I visited other supermarket bins. I was living in the second-largest city in Denmark and I knew there was going to be a lot of food waste. I went to check out other bins daily and they were always full. Most of the time, the bins went up to my shoulders, but sometimes I had to hang myself over the bin with my feet in the air to grab the food at the bottom. I never felt dirty – the bins in Denmark’s supermarkets are kept really clean.
I’ve since travelled around Denmark a lot – now I live in Copenhagen – and everywhere I go the bins are bursting with delicious produce. The other day, I came home with more than 40 avocados. I wasn’t able to take more as I only have one backpack and a basket on the front of my bike. I also took only 30 eggs from a batch of 80 because I knew there was no way I could eat that many eggs. I’m always sharing my food. I make hearty soups for my roommates out of bin food when I find a lot of broccoli, potatoes, leeks, cauliflower, and peppers.
I have been eating bin food for seven years now: I only buy beer, oil, spices and chocolate because it’s not easy to find these items in bins. If I go out with my friends, I might buy some falafel or have lunch at a café. But I don’t know what a monthly food bill looks like because I’ve never had one.
I go dumpster diving every three days, but sometimes I don’t go for a week because I have so much food to get through. A month ago, I rescued lots of tofu and vegan falafel and stuck it in the freezer. I get mixed reactions. The first time people hear about dumpster diving for food, they think it’s something smelly – it’s a bin. Some people are like: “Oh, this is amazing, I want to come with you! Can I join you?”
A friend came dumpster diving with me recently, and when we opened the lid of the bin, it was full of masses of cut-in-half oranges that had been squeezed for the juice. I could see walnuts, hazelnuts, broccoli, and yoghurts underneath it all. For me, it’s no big deal. If the products are a bit sticky, when I get home, I take them out of the packaging or wash them. My friend found it off-putting to have sticky food as I hung myself over the side of the bin to reach into it. Luckily, I’m very tall and managed to grab the food I wanted without having to get in a mess.
By 2019, I had been living off bins for a year when I realised I wanted to spread the word about food waste in Denmark – but also in Europe. I thought of a funny handle for Instagram – dumpsterdivingdivaa – and started taking pictures and videos and posting them. I wanted to show it’s not disgusting and it’s actually good quality edible food.
I’ll open a green dumpster and show it overflowing with bags of crisps, then open another full of bread, and another bursting with lovely veg and fruit. I often lay food out after a dive to show how perfect it is: packs of strawberries, orange juices, pizza, watermelon and cherry tomatoes.
People think of Denmark as a green country, but their supermarket dumpsters are shameful. It is crazy that people are starving in the world, yet I can live off supermarket dumpsters for seven years. It’s partly caused by over consumption but also bad management, with supermarkets chucking things out well before their sell-by date – and it’s people’s attitude that food about to expire isn’t worth having.
For me, dumpster diving is a way of life. If I’m out and about on a bike ride and I’m hungry, I stop by a dumpster and grab something like a banana directly from the bin, and move on, until I am hungry again. It’s like drive-by dumpsters – and now I know all the dumpsters, I can be picky. I know where to go if I want to get good bread or veg – and also what time of the week I need to get there because I know the exact days the rubbish collectors go.
I have it strongly in my mind that it is not trash, but food. If I get stopped by somebody for dumpster diving, I am respectful. I will come back later when they are not there. In some countries, they have bins with locks – and some supermarkets in Denmark are locking them. The worst thing about a locked bin is the food waste is hidden, and you can’t share it online with anyone.
If I ever move, I may try out Norway and Sweden, where there are also fancy dumpsters like in Denmark. I’ve recently found 30 bags of dry seaweed salad, tofu, vegan chicken, vegan kebabs, five litres of wine, 40 cans of beer thrown out because one can leaked in the case, sodas, and cola drinks in bins.
But I don’t think I’m doing enough because the bins are still full. Hopefully, through Instagram, I will one day reach somebody who can try to help make systematic change. I’m surprised at how many people watch my videos, as it’s only trash, but there are people sharing locations asking me to take them with me.
I find way more food than I need for myself – and I can’t always go to dumpsters. I’m happy to help others find them, though. I might not always score a trash jackpot, but I hope that showing videos of me making mushroom soup with bin waste, or finding heaps of perfect sweet plums in bins, raises awareness – and helps stop food waste.
