Trash

I have dumptser-dived for at least a decade now. My first taste of it came as an undergrad on erasmus exchange to Utrecht in the Netherlands. My mate Cristina brought me along to go through the bins at the veg market on lombok, looking for sad but edible vegetables to cook up with the collective taste-before-you-waste.

This first experience led me to a lifelong pursuit of riffling through trash piles for usable stuff. It has directly influenced my volunteering with bike kitchens and organisations that take perfectly edible food from supermarkets and bakeries to redistribute it. It also means I always have an eye out for stuff being thrown away

I've found delicious cakes, beer, a microwave, chairs, paint, a beautiful brass pot hanger, a fully usable laptop and more in my digging. I have consumed and found homes for goods of a total value well in excess of £5000 in total and kept dozens of tons of food out of landfill.

These days my appetite for getting shoulder deep in a dumpter is dampened by my higher salary and much lower risk tolerance to the kind of behaviour that, while not illegal, could still see me deported from my current home of Sweden for "a flawed way of life" whatever out current right-wing government define that to be. Nevertheless, I encourage you, next time you walk by a skip at the side of the road, hop up and have a look. You never know what treasure awaits.