A Dublin student has been raiding street and supermarket bins for food as a way to help save the environment.
Rozalie has been dumpster diving for five years, but this concept has been common around the world for a much longer period.
It involves going to the dumping area of shops or skips on the side of the road and rummaging through it for items that you may not consider rubbish.
Rozalie, an Erasmus student from Prague is studying Maths and Physics in TU Dublin.
She told Dublin Live that she hates to see food go in the bin and took up dumpster diving as a way to prevent waste.
She said: “I find bins on the street and I look inside. Looking in the bins outside supermarkets is the easiest thing, they always have a lot of food.
“I’ve been doing it for four or five years now, I was doing it in Prague quite often, then I stopped for some time because it’s not that easy to do it all the time.
“I do it because so much food has been wasted and I wanted to try and save some of it.
“I think food waste is terrible and the worst part is that most people can’t even see what's going on.
“I know it’s not really a solution to the problem (of climate change), but it can help somehow. I'm not doing it because it’s free food. It’s mostly because I hate wasting food, and because of the environmental part of it."
Rozalie arrived in Dublin last year to begin her studies here in Ireland.
She reached out to people on Facebook to find other people who are dumpster divers here.
She explained: “I found a group on Facebook and I asked people there to take me to some bins.
“It’s difficult if you’re alone. It's quite scary because someone might see you and may think you're weird, but if you go with someone it’s less worrying."
Rozalie is vegetarian so dumpster diving is easier for her as meat can be unsafe to take from a bin.
In the history of her treasure hunts she has found editable food which includes pastries, fruit and vegetables.
She explained: “I don’t usually look for any particular food, I usually take what is there, things that aren’t destroyed which can be used somehow and that I know I won’t throw out. I take almost anything.
“You can usually find pastries and a lot of fruit and vegetables which tend to be fine. They’re not perfect because they’re in the bin, but they’re editable.
“Most of the things are in plastic bags, a lot of fruit and vegetables are in plastic bags which I think is too much even if we are in the middle of a pandemic."
Rozalie prefers to keep her dumpster diving locations a secret as she does not want to get into any trouble.
The laws around dumpster diving in Ireland are quite vague, as most items in skips belong to the refuse company, so it is always best to ask permission or else you could be prosecuted.
Many places are more concerned about people dumping their own rubbish in skips rather than taking items from it, so places may allow you to rummage through their bins.
Rozalie also joined the student volunteer society in TUD since her arrival.
She is trying to come up with an idea of how to distribute food that is going to be thrown away as a way to prevent food waste.
She even hopes to give the food to people who need it.
She explained that there is an app where people can exchange unwanted items in order to prevent them from going to waste.
She said: “There’s an app called Olio where people put up things they don’t use and you can pick it up.
“I thought we might do something with the food waste and talk to the supermarkets because there is a difference between the food that is expired and the best before date. Or if the packaging is damaged - it doesn’t get sold.”
Dumpster diving is seen as a way of tackling food waste and hunger.
Rozalie believes that food waste is a problem and it needs to be dealt with and she thinks society needs to change.
Here are her top tips for dumpster diving in Ireland:
- Wear clothing that covers your entire body. Wear a hoodie and tuck the ends of your trousers into your socks. Rozalie suggests wearing gloves and a face mask also.
- Inspect items carefully. Look at the best before dates and check for mould or rips in the packaging of food.
- If you have permission to dumpster dive at a shop, ask them what day they tend to throw things out so you can get them as soon as possible.
- Make sure you get permission and know your rights. Stay off private property and don’t trespass.
- Give anything you don’t want away to someone who does and avoid wasting goods.
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