SECRET FREEGAN: Rescuing Food to Feed Homeless

1. Dumpsters are obviously disgusting and filthy.

They harbor germs galore, including those that could cause food poisoning, staph, and pneumonia...and in Los Angeles three-quarters of them are tainted with drug residue*...oh, I was talking about United States dollar bills-not dumpsters.
The majority of store dumpsters are emptied daily by sanitation trucks, so the contents are no older than 24 hours. Most of the dumpster contents were for sale on store shelves a couple hours earlier, so they can't be too rotten!

2. Dumpster diving is outside the norm of society's accepted behaviors. And it just feels wrong!

Grocery store corporate policy ensures purposely wasting all of today's leftovers from every department: bakery, floral, deli, meat, produce, and frozen goods. If there is one brown leaf on a head of lettuce, out goes the whole head. They could legally choose to donate it to charity, and receive a beneficial tax write-off for doing so. At least they could compost the food and recycle the vast sea of packaging materials. But that would entail doing things differently, rewriting policy, and taking the time to brainstorm and figure out the most efficient way to implement the new policy.

What feels more wrong-recovering the edible food and feeding dozens of families- or letting it clog our landfills where it emits methane, a gas much more toxic to our atmosphere than carbon dioxide?

3. Dumpster diving is irresponsible and dangerous.

One of my neighbors, Gus, throws a huge party every day for the whole neighborhood. The guests are treated to an amazing all-you-can-eat buffet with thousands of varieties of food. And every day he orders his staff to don sanitary plastic gloves and place $500-$2,000 worth of his gala's leftover in clean plastic bags. Then he orders more staff to place the bags in the garbage bin beside his house.

I once asked my neighbor if he could donate the food to local charities-after all, there are 10,000 people living in their cars or on the streets in our city of Phoenix alone. He said, "And what would I do if one of those poor people decided to make some money by claiming to get sick from my food and taking me to court? What kind of publicity would that bring me? What would that do to my reputation? No one would come to my party anymore!"

He went on, "Of course, I'd have to settle out of court quickly to minimize the publicity. That could be very expensive for me. I give a truckload of canned goods to the local food bank every day, but I am forced to throw all the rest away. I just can't take that liability risk."
I've watched how Gus operates. I know his food dumping schedule. I regularly drive to his place, quietly fill up my car with the food bags, bring them home, open them up, and organize the food in my three refrigerator/freezers. The following day I distribute it to local needy people.

Oh-"Gus" is just a nickname for my neighbor. "My Neighborhood Grocery Store" is his full name. Now who is the wackiest, more irresponsible one-"Gus," the local chain grocery store- or me, the local dumpster diver?

*Statistics from Broke is Beautiful, by Laura Lee

In the last 3 ½ years, Secret Freegan has donated $92,000 worth of recovered goods to the needy and saved over $12,000 in grocery bills. She is a suburban housewife, mother, and teacher with two Master's degrees. Photos and videos of her finds can be viewed at SecretFreegan.com.

Every week a teen runaway shelter picks up 200 lbs. of food from me. They have even donated a second fridge for my garage so I can store more food for them safely.

Every day I check certain bins for fresh bags and boxes of food. It is like someone has emptied an enormous refrigerator and freezer, put the items in clean bags and boxes, and placed them outside for a few minutes for me to find. Here's a photo of a bin full of over 100 loaves of today's bread.
The bins are picked up by dump trucks every single day. There is no old food. I have never seen one insect in 8 months.
The average store throws out $500-$800 worth of fresh food every day: 100 loaves bread, 10 cakes and pies, 100 donuts, 50 bagels, 100 pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables: lettuce, celery, radishes, peaches, nectarines, grapes, artichokes, asparagus, oranges, lemons, peppers, tomatoes, kiwis, mushrooms, parsley, onions,and potatoes, etc.

The safest foods to rescue are fresh fruits and vegetables. You can see if they're fresh or not. Since they come from the ground,they need to be washed no matter where you buy/find them. I suggest washing them with a solution of 1 tsp. blue-capped type bleach of a big bowl of water, OR add 1 tsp.baking soda OR 1 Tbsp. white vinegar OR a commercial vegetable washing liquid found in a health food store.

Frozen or refrigerated meals must be very cold. Don't take them if they're warm. (Winter is good for binning.) Any cooked meats taken must be refrigerated as soon as possible, and heated to 165 degrees core temperature before eating.

Here's a small portion of what I typically find in a day. I'm very thankful for all of it, and usually can feed about 25 other people with it. I sort and box it neater before taking to a shelter. I make sure it's a shelter that doesn't require packaged, dated food as a few do. I don't drive around and let the food go bad. I immediately take it home, process it by sorting, bagging, putting in fridge or I take it immediately to a shelter. Food safety is important!

Trash Pickers Save the World

March 25, 2008 McClatchy Newspapers
Buenos Aires, Argentina--
"As the world scrambles to save dwindling resources and halt global warming, a long-scorned population is becoming the latest hope in the environmental battle.

The unsung heroes are impoverished trash pickers who fill the streets of cities around the developing world, searching garbage for cardboard, plastic bags and other treasure that can be sold and recycled.

They rescue hundreds of thousands of tons of material from streets and trash dumps that get reprocessed into all kinds of products. That not only cuts back on the resources used by industries but also lightens the load on dumps that are quickly reaching capacity.

Despite their contributions, trash pickers have long suffered harassment from local governments and derision from neighbors, who often consider them vagrants or even criminals. Such attitudes, however, are changing, trash pickers said, and they're increasingly being seen as foot soldiers in the global-warming battle."

I gather the produce, sort, and refrigerate for one day if I can't get it to the shelter the same day.

I pick up the boxes and lay them in my car, careful to leave things as neat as I found them. Have my car lined with plastic sheeting so I don't drip on the seats too much. Got a whole car full, shared with shelter and some needy families.

Sweet and delicious

Recently I started listing Free Groceries on my local Freecycle.org group site. The people who have come by to pick up the food have been amazing, grateful, and interested in what I'm doing. One receiver brought me soup and dehydrated apples she made from the food. Another gal is going to help me with a photography shoot I'm doing soon. Another gave me a hand written thank you note. Another told me the flowers and food she received totally made her day, and she impressed her relatives with a beautiful feast.

Lots dumped after Mother's Day

Another treat for the teens

On Dumpster Diving

Lars Eighner

From http://www1.broward.edu/~nplakcy/docs/dumpster_diving.htm

A freelance writer living in Austin, Lars Eighner (b. 1948) was born in Corpus Christi, Texas and attended the University of Texas from 1966 to 1969. He was an attendant ward worker at the Austin State Hospital from 1980 to 1987 and worked off and on for a drug crisis program and as a freelance writer.
Lars Eighner and his dog Wilma
Eighner lived on the streets for several years, and his homeless experiences are recalled in Travels with Lizbeth (1993), which became a best seller and from which "Dumpster Diving" is excerpted. "Dumpster Diving" was first anthologized in The Pushcart Prize Best of the Small Presses in 1992.

I find from the experience of scavenging two rather deep lessons. The first is to take what you can use and let the rest go by. I have come to think that there is no value in the abstract. A thing I cannot use or make useful, perhaps by trading, has no value however rare or fine it may be. I mean useful in a broad sense--some art I would find useful and some otherwise.

I was shocked to realize that some things are not worth acquiring, but now I think it is so. Some material things are white elephants that eat up the possessor's substance. The second lesson is the transience of material being. This has not quite converted me to a dualist, but it has made some headway in that direction. I do not suppose that ideas are immortal, but certainly mental things are longer lived than other material things.

Once I was the sort of person who invests objects with sentimental value. Now I no longer have those objects, but I have the sentiments yet.

Many times in our travels I have lost everything but the clothes I was wearing and Lizbeth. The things I find in Dumpsters, the love letters and rag dolls of so many lives, remind me of this lesson. Now I hardly pick up a thing without envisioning the time I will cast it aside. This I think is a healthy state of mind. Almost everything I have now has already been cast out at least once, proving that what I own is valueless to someone.

Anyway, I find my desire to grab for the gaudy bauble has been largely sated. I think this is an attitude I share with the very wealthy--we both know there is plenty more where what we have came from. Between us are the rat-race millions who nightly scavenge the cable channels looking for they know not what.

I am sorry for them.

More about Lars Eighner

Thoughts from another good-hearted "freegan" from http://www.emoware.org/dumpster-diving/
The blog has video links and lots of details about European Dumpster diving.

The author says:

The term "freegan" does imply choice, but her knowledge of freegans seems limited to the unsurprisingly narrowminded media attention they've recieved. this is probably where the second asumption comes from, that freegans are unambitious, lazy, and don't contribute to society. presuming so reduces everyone down to nothing but consumers. many freegans do have jobs, and many also contribute to society in ways that can't be measured by economics, and in ways that benefit the whole of humanity, not just the top 5%. what they definitely don't do is hurt the bottom 80%. dumpster divers are not "bums/freeloaders/losers", they're not living off others in a way that deprives anyone of anything (apart from maybe each other, if they get too greedy). they simply live off the waste, the stuff that someone else has decided they don't wont and rather than passing it on to someone in need (as 'food not bombs' does) has attempted to selfishly destroy it. dumpster divers cause no harm, we just take advantage (something all good capitalists should understand). we reduce waste that would otherwise go to landfill and help feed a few hungry mouths.

The Good Samaritan Food Donation Act was signed into existence in 1996. It encourages donation of food and grocery products to non-profit organizations for distribution to needy individuals.

Here's how this law makes it easier for you to donate:

* It protects you from civil and criminal liability should the product donated in good faith later cause harm to the needy recipient.

* It standardizes donor liability exposure. You and your legal counsel no longer have to investigate liability laws in 50 states.

* It sets a liability floor of "gross negligence" or intentional misconduct for persons who donate, defined as "voluntary and conscious conduct by a person with knowledge (at the time of conduct) that the conduct is likely to be harmful to the health or well-being of another person."

* Congress recognized that the provision of food being close to the date of recommended retail sale is, in and of itself, not grounds for finding gross negligence.

Here is the full text of the federal law which protects grocery stores and all who donate food to the needy. I have highlighted important areas toward the end:
Text of Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act

PUBLIC LAW 104-210

An Act

To encourage the donation of food and grocery products to nonprofit organizations for distribution to needy individuals by giving the Model Good Samaritan Food Donation Act the full force and effect of law.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

conduct was likely to be harmful to the health or well-being

of another person.'';

(D) by striking subsection (c) and inserting the following:

(c) Liability for Damages From Donated Food and Grocery Products.--

(1) Liability of person or gleaner.--A person or gleaner

shall not be subject to civil or criminal liability arising

from the nature, age, packaging, or condition of apparently

wholesome food or an apparently fit grocery product that

the person or gleaner donates in good faith to a

non-profit organization for ultimate distribution to needy

individuals.

(2) Liability of non-profit organization.--A non-profit

organization shall not be subject to civil or criminal

liability arising from the nature, age, packaging, or

condition of apparently wholesome food or an apparently

fit grocery product that the non-profit organization

received as a donation in good faith from a person or

gleaner for ultimate distribution to needy individuals.

SEC. 402. MODEL GOOD SAMARITAN FOOD DONATION ACT.

(a) SHORT TITLE. -This section may be cited as the "Good Samaritan Food Donation Act".

(b) DEFINITIONS. -As used in this section:
(1) APPARENTLY FIT GROCERY PRODUCT.-The term "apparently fit grocery product" means a grocery product that meets a quality and labeling standards imposed by Federal, State, and local laws and regulations even though the product may not be readily marketable due to appearance, age, freshness, grade, size, surplus, or other conditions.
(2) APPARENTLY WHOLESOME FOOD. -The term "apparently wholesome food" means food that meets all quality and labeling standards imposed by Federal, State, and local laws and regulations even though the food may not be readily marketable due to appearance, age, freshness, grade, size, surplus, or other conditions.
(3) DONATE.-The term "donate" means to give without requiring anything of monetary value from the recipient, except that the term shall include giving by a nonprofit organization to another nonprofit organization, notwithstanding that the donor organization has charged a nominal fee to the donee organization, if the ultimate recipient or user is not required anything of monetary value.
(4) FOOD.-The term "food" means any raw, cooked, processed, or prepared edible substance, ice, beverage, or ingredient used or intended for use in whole or in part for human consumption.
(5) GLEANER. -The term "gleaner" means a person who harvests for free distribution to the needy, or for donation to a nonprofit organization for ultimate distribution to the needy, an agricultural crop that has been donated by the owner.
(6) GROCERY PRODUCT. -The term "grocery product" means a nonfood grocery product, including a disposable paper or plastic product, household cleaning product, laundry detergent, cleaning product, or miscellaneous household item.
(7) GROSS NEGLIGENCE.-The term "gross negligence" means voluntary and conscious conduct by a person with knowledge (at the time of the conduct) that the conduct is likely to be harmful to the health or well-being of another person.
(8) INTENTIONAL MISCONDUCT.-The term "intentional misconduct" means conduct by a person with knowledge (at the time of the conduct) that the conduct is harmful to the health or well-being of another person.
(9) NONPROFIT ORGANIZATION.-The term "nonprofit organization" means an incorporated or unincorporated entity that --
(A) is operating for religious, charitable, or educational purposes; and
(B) does not provide net earnings to, or operate in any other manner that inures to the benefit of, any officer, employee, or shareholder of the entity.
(10) PERSON.-The term "person" means an individual, corporation, partnership, organization, association, or governmental entity, including a retail grocer, wholesaler, hotel, motel, manufacturer, restaurant, caterer, farmer, and nonprofit food distributor or hospital. In the case of a corporation, partnership, organization, association, or governmental entity, the term includes an officer, director, partner, deacon, trustee, council member, or other elected or appointed individual responsible for the governance of the entity.

(c)LIABILITY FOR DAMAGES FROM DONATED FOOD AND GROCERY PRODUCTS. - A person or gleaner shall not be subject to civil or criminal liability arising from the nature, age, packaging, or condition of apparently wholesome food or an apparently fit grocery product that the person or gleaner donates in good faith to a nonprofit organization for ultimate distribution to needy individuals, except that this paragraph shall not apply to an injury to or death of an ultimate user or recipient of the food or grocery product that results from an act or omission of the donor constituting gross negligence or intentional misconduct.

(d) COLLECTION OR GLEANING OF DONATIONS.-A person who allows the collection or gleaning of donations on property owned or occupied by the person by gleaners, or paid or unpaid representatives of a nonprofit organization, for ultimate distribution to needy individuals shall not be subject to civil or criminal liability that arises due to the injury of death of the gleaner or representative, except that this paragraph shall not apply to an injury or death that results from an act or omission of the person constituting gross negligence or intentional misconduct.

(e) PARTIAL COMPLIANCE.-If some or all of the donated food and grocery products do not meet all quality and labeling standards imposed by Federal, State, and local laws and regulations, the person or gleaner who donates the food and grocery products shall not be subject to civil or criminal liability in accordance with this section if the nonprofit organization that receives the donated food or grocery products-
(1) is informed by the donor of the distressed or defective condition of the donated food or grocery products;
(2) agrees to recondition the donated food or grocery products to comply with all the quality and labeling standards prior to distribution; and
(3) is knowledgeable of the standards to properly recondition the donated food or grocery product.
(f) CONSTRUCTION.-This section shall not be construed to create any liability.

SEC. 403. EFFECT OF SECTION. 402

The model Good Samaritan Food Donation Act (provided in section 402) is intended only to serve as a model law for enactment by the States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the territories and possessions of the United States. The enactment of section 402 shall have no force or effect in law.

Alarming facts about
genetically engineered foods

* Animals have become seriously ill or died from Genetically Engineered (GE) foods
* Hazardous genes from GE foods that you eat can become inserted into your own genes
* An unexpected poison killed 37 persons eating a food supplement produced by GE bacteria. This disaster was not coincidental:
* Top researchers confirm that genetic engineering is inherently unsafe and unpredictable. It may therefore generate unexpected harmful substances in GE food
* Numerous studies have demonstrated that GE causes "non-target effects" in addition to the specific "desired effect". These effects are little understood, completely unpredictable and may be hazardous to the individual and the environment. This underscores the fundamental unsafety of genetic engineering.
* The present procedure for assesing the safety of GE foods is not designed to detect unexpected substances
* Therefore, harmful substances may appear in GE food approved as food
* Still, GE foods are sold in most food stores in the US and in many other countries
* In the US and Canada, they are not even labeled

What is genetic engineering?

Warning for disinformation at the internet. Corporations systematically misuse the internet for confusing people about issues and organizations that threaten their interests.
More
Synonyms

Genetically Engineered (GE) = Genetically Modified (GM) = Genetically Altered.

More

What foods are genetically engineered?

Many common foods are, including: Corn, Soy, Wheat, Canola, Tomato , Potato , Rice , Cantaloupe , Sugar beet - (all kinds of sugar) , Radicchio , Flax (linseed) , Papaya , Squash , Oilseed rape, Alfalfa.

All of these, and products made of them, including common infant feeds, may contain unexpected harmful substances.

And remember, in the US, the GE foods are not labeled.

In order to make it easy for you to rapidly get a good idea about the issue, we have created an introduction in steps with increasing amounts of detail at each step.
Step one
Our main conclusions at a glance

Commercial application of genetic engineering for production of foods cannot be scientifically justified and carries with it unpredictable and potentially serious consequences.

The reasons are as follows:
# The knowledge about the genes and how they work is too incomplete to make it possible to predict and understand all consequences of genetic engineering.
# The knowledge about the health safety of GE foods is seriously incomplete.
# The knowledge about the environmental safety of GE organisms is seriously incomplete.
# It has been scientifically established that unexpected effects can occur from genetic engineering that are hazardous to health and the surroundings.
# Science has established that there is no need for GE organisms for feeding the world or solving nutritional deficiency problems.
# Food biotechnology perpetuates environmentally unsustainable industrial agriculture. It is based on chemicals of various kinds that are demonstratedly harmful to health and to the environment.

Why GE foods should be banned immediately

Considering that GE organisms are unsafe to eat and that they expose the environment to unpredictable and irreversible risks, they should be banned. It is not justified to take any risk at all in using them as there is no need for them to feed the world and because they perpetuate unsustainable agriculture that is harmful to health and to the environment.

On the following pages you will find more details explaining our position.

Published by

Physicians and Scientists for Responsible Application of
Science and Technology (PSRAST)

This website was created in december 1996
Last update: May 15, 2008

http://www.emoware.org/dumpster-diving/dumpster-diving-guide.asp

Thanks, Dear Prudence for mentioning my savory freegan food photos!

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/fresh-greens/2009/03/12/freeganism-youre-doing-it-wrong.html