Sean’s Dive

contrary to some of my lingering doubts, they aren’t just rabid scavengers

Sean

I did it! I survived my first attempt at dumpster diving. I can’t say I got off totally scot-free, but I will say that the experience was a lot less painful and a whole lot more rewarding than I had anticipated.

I was armed with some not-so-secret weapons that made the whole cherry-poppin’ experience a hell-of-a-lot easier. Gloves, for one, were a huge help. And I don’t mean the sort of crappy disposable gloves that you might wear washing your cat. I mean big-ass, industrial mittens that wouldn’t look out of place in a Breaking Bad meth lab. When I was scourging in the darkness through a whole lot of garbage bags, rotting fruit and heaven-knows-what-else, having an extra layer of skin was a total godsend.

My second not-so-secret weapon was a flashlight. If you really want to get your hands dirty, and one of my fellow divers was pretty hardcore in that respect, having a reasonable flashlight makes it possible to bury your hands into the deepest recesses of the dumpster.

My arsenal of not-so-secret weapons

While I might have looked the part (this isn’t me tooting my own horn, those were the words of my seasoned compatriots), I was surprised by how nervous I was about the whole enterprise. It’s a little hard to put my finger on, but there is something about plunging headfirst into a skip, with nothing but a flashlight and a bloated sense of moral duty, that seemed a little daunting to me. The whole ‘diving’ element of dumpster diving had me picturing myself flipping and pirouetting into a dumpster, while a panel of judges watched on and marked me out of ten.

Alas, such fears turned out to be totally unfounded.

While all the sneaking and whispering did make me feel a bit like a crook, once my fellow divers and I got into the dumpsters (behind one of the North Shore’s busiest shopping centres) all of this seemed totally superficial. It may have been a Wednesday night, and as such produce/waste levels were comparatively low, but the dumpsters were still a veritable treasure trove of fresh food, just waiting for some lucky diver to exploit.

Perhaps what blew me away the most was the quality of food on offer. I tend to be a pretty fussy eater at the best of times, and despite overriding evidence to the contrary, I have always viewed expiration dates as fairly sacrosanct. But even for a prude like me, it seemed inconceivable that some of this food had found its way into the skip.

Perfectly sealed bread, with expiration dates more than a week into the future, seemed to be the norm rather than the exception. Likewise, one particular tip yielded dozens of sealed pizza bases, at $15 a pop, which were still in date for another 10 days.

A vegetarian frittata, in mint condition, which we acquired 

Despite this abundance of food, I was pleasantly surprised by how cautious the two more experienced divers were in their collection of food. For instance, they passed up a huge bunch of oranges, which as far I could see, were in perfectly good knick.

Dumpster divers aren’t the kind of people that would eat any old thing that fell off the back of a truck. And, contrary to some of my lingering doubts, they aren’t just rabid scavengers. As far as I could see, these experienced divers were far pickier than me. Maybe I’d just happened to go exploring with some of Sydney’s fine dining dumpster divers, but I don’t think so. Real, hardened, experienced dumpster divers are just as picky as your average grocery shopper, and in all likelihood, they are even pickier.

My diving compatriots and I chatted a lot during our little nocturnal exploration. I tried to impress them with my knowledge of food wastage, dropping statistics and recycled arguments like I had come up with them myself. But these guys had the sort of practical know-how that you couldn’t possibly find in a book or, dare I say, an online forum. Things like how to avoid the prowling guard, whether that smell was our food rotting or just the accumulation of bin juice and appropriate dress to avoid suspicion (apparently a hoodie helps keep a low profile but a black skivvy is perhaps a little too Ocean’s Eleven).

Me and my more experienced diving compatriot, Tash 

So, as it turned out, the most important not-so-secret weapon was simply other people. People that actually know what the hell they are doing. Without these guys, I was just a lost puppy, poking around in the darkness. I didn’t know which dumpsters to attack or when it was worth rolling up my sleeves and getting my hands dirty. They knew these bins like they were their own backyard, and that sort of knowledge is priceless for a budding diver like myself.

Prior to my first dive, I hadn’t formulated any grand, romantic notion of me fighting against the evil wastage of billion-dollar supermarket conglomerates. And in all honesty, I’m still not entirely sold on the romanticism of the whole practice. But when I was surveying those bins, absolutely choc-a-bloc full of beautiful produce, it seemed just as wasteful for me to leave any of that food, as it would be for Woolies to toss it out in the first place.

That’s one satisfied looking dumpster diver