Dumpster Diving Fills House Pantry and Fridge with Food

In less than five hours of dumpster diving, I filled a completely empty pantry and fridge with over $1,000 worth of perfectly good food. That’s collecting $200 an hour worth of food. It’s all sealed and unopened and it came from grocery store dumpsters.

I’m passionate about ending food waste and hunger and I don’t think dumpster diving is the ultimate solution, but for anyone out there who wants to save money on food or reduce their environmental impact, then dumpster diving is a great way to do it.

With one in seven US Americans being food insecure or hungry, this is a way to meet their needs and eat better than they ever have before.

See our complete Guide to Dumpster Diving to learn how to dumpster dive.

Learn about the issue of food waste and how you can help put an end to grocery store food waste:

The Food Waste Fiasco: You Have to See it to Believe it

Transcript: The following is a transcription of Dumpster Diving for Food with Robin Greenfield.

Hey everyone, Robin Greenfield here and I just went dumpster diving. So, just for a little experiment, I started with an empty pantry, an empty fridge and basically an empty kitchen. I wanted to see what I could do with it in a very little bit of time. This pantry behind me was empty when I started this morning. Here is the refrigerator. This was also empty when I started. Nothing, nothing at all and now it is filled to the brim. What I couldn’t fit in the pantry or the fridge is right here, sitting out, overflow.

So, in 4 1/2 hours of dumpster diving, we collected $1,000 worth of food. That’s about $200 worth per hour. Not a bad job for someone who is making $10 per hour. The beautiful thing about this is, it’s health food or junk food. It’s whatever you want. I personally prefer to eat really healthy food. But you can get anything you want.

This top row is mostly all cereal. We’ve got “Life,” for example. And “Cheerios” and “Pop Tarts.” We got oats, which is what I would go with. And then we’ve got loads of granola bars. “Nature Valley- Nut Crisp” here. We’ve got your coffee, “Folgers Gourmet.” We’ve got these “French Vanilla” pods. More “Pop Tarts.” Down here we’ve got 18 “Reeses Spreads.” This is like a peanut butter and chocolate spread. We’ve got cookies, more peanut butter, the “fun stripes” kind. Over here we’ve got loads and loads of crackers. Down here we’ve got tons of bread. This is just a small fraction of the bread we grabbed. Even gum … sealed gum. Salad dressing for months and months and months. Cookies, “Hostess Cupcakes.” And down here, absurdly, you’ve got bottled water, which never goes bad. And then you’ve got just about four dozen or five dozen of these sparkling waters. So that’s the pantry.

Let me show you what’s in the fridge. What you’re seeing here is not an exception. I’m in Athens, Georgia, right now. But I’ve done this in 28 states across the country. And this is totally, totally standard. Last month, I was in Orlando, Forida, and we collected $250 an hour worth of food and its the same stuff. All over the country. Your typical grocery stores. Whatever local grocery store or big chain you have. Aldi’s is a great one, Trader Joe’s is a great one. CVS and pharmacies are great.

So, here in the fridge, we’ve got a little bit of everything. We’ve got meats like bologna. There’s turkey breast tenderloins and chicken wings. You’ve got milk and you’ve got your choice of grass-fed or factory farm. You’ve got more bread. You can go healthy and do something like tofu, organic. Or, you’ve got “Organic Valley Low Fat Cottage Cheese.” And then you’ve got your total junk, like your “Kraft Singles American,” which isn’t even really cheese. But, hey … it’s in the dumpster and if this is what you want, there it is for you.

You’ve got peppers, heads of cabbage and lettuce. And, you know, a lot of Americans don’t even get the chance to … they don’t even eat one fruit or vegetable per day. If you’re dumpster diving, you can fit in all of your fruits and vegetables. So, here we’ve got corn and tomatoes. This is just loaded with apples and oranges. And, in the bottom, I stuffed your potatoes, onions, squash and green peppers. We’ve even got avocado, mango, peaches and plums up here. We’ve got coconut water and energy drinks. You’ve got your salad dressing and organic bananas. We’ve got grapes and even these “Zip Lock Bags” actually came from the dumpster as well. So even the “Zip Lock Bags” that we’re using came from the dumpster. And again, you’re utterly absurd bottled water, which obviously never goes bad.

The awesome thing is that most of this is not even past the suggested ‘sell by’ date or the ‘best buy’ date. But you should know that those dates … the food is still good after that. For example, this was up this month. But this could be good for another couple of years. Most of the stuff in the pantry wasn’t even past it’s date for about another month. And then over here, you’ve got watermelons. Enough for a watermelon party. And potatoes and onions for ages.

In the United States, we throw away $165 billion worth of food per year. That’s with a ‘b,’ not an ‘m’ … billion, not million. Which is just an insane amount of money. As I’ve said, I’ve done this all across the country. This is happening everywhere. Big towns, urban cities, little residential areas. This is happening in the grocery store dumpsters.

Usually my message is not to go dumpster diving. It’s all about making sure we’re not putting food in the dumpsters in the first place. Let’s handle our food in a much better way, so that there’s no food in the dumpsters. However, while the food is in the dumpsters … if you don’t have enough money to afford food, or you aren’t getting enough fruits and vegetables because of your budget, you’re a college student who’s basically broke, you’re a mom who’s trying to feed five kids and they want more and more and more watermelons, but you can’t afford it, or if you just want to reduce your environmental impact and not have to buy virgin food. These are all reasons why, at this point in time, dumpster diving makes a lot of sense.

It’s also crazy the amount you get to share with people. If you want to be the person that has thousands of dollars’ worth of food to give out to people, that’s another awesome reason to dumpster dive. My message usually is, let’s not dumpster dive. Let’s not put the food in the dumpster in the first place. I do this to raise awareness. But, if the food is in the dumpster, we may as well eat it.