Exploring Dumpster Diving, Part 1: Tentative Steps

I want to talk a little bit about boundaries. Specifically about the socially programmed boundaries in our heads, dividing clean and dirty, healthy and unhealthy, property and free. But first, I want to address the clean addicts. Come a little closer, you scrubbers and scrapers, bleachers and boilers. You frantic purchasers of disinfectants and guaranteed bacteria killers. Sssshhhhh...listen carefully, for I have something important to tell you.

On Thursday night, I ate a doughnut I found in a bin.

Good! Now they're all off cleaning their brains with wire wool, we can talk about the ethics and joys of dumpster diving. One thing first: I know we don't have any dumpsters in this country, it's Britain, we have bins. It should really be "Bin Diving" but it just doesn't sound as positive, it doesn't convey a fraction of the joy involved in this activity, and it conjures up all the nasty (and largely mythical) elements all too well. Simply put, it's the practice of digging through bins (usually those belonging to shops and other large institutions) to recover useable items, sometimes including food.

I've read about dumpster diving before, with considerable interest, and it really resonates with me as an ethical practice as well as a very exciting idea - but what with one thing and another (mostly fear and embarassment as usual) I never did anything about it. But this time around the idea really caught fire for me. I would consider myself an ethical consumer, I don't eat factory chicken and try to buy free range or organic products when possible, whenever I can I buy ingredients rather than processed food and cook things for myself, etc. etc. But I'm often aware of how woefully short my efforts land - better than many, but I'm still contributing to numerous abusive and destructive chains of production.

This year, I'm finding myself developing new sensibilities about what is necessary and justified in terms of possessions and consumption, and it suddenly seems like the positive ethics of dumpster diving outweigh the niggling fear and embarassment I feel at digging around in rubbish. So last Tuesday at about 8:30pm I donned my black hooded sweatshirt, black jeans, hiking boots, took a pair of gloves, a woolly hat and, as it turns out, WITHOUT my torch or any other source of illumination, set out to find binnage and buried treasure.

I wanted to be as far as possible from anyone who might recognize me or, indeed, who I would ever meet again. So I set out on foot for Kempston, which is half-merged with my hometown of Bedford and has shopping areas roughly half an hour from my flat. Along the way, traversing the backstreets, I found a new level of awareness creeping in. Constantly on the lookout for interesting shops with promising bins and for watching passersby, I started to be aware of my surroundings in a different way - familiar streets became exciting again, I saw details and side avenues I'd never noticed before as I began to look for the ways around, behind and through the environment. Once I realised I'd forgotten a torch, I concluded that this would probably have to be just a scouting mission, but I was massively enjoying this new exploring experience nonetheless.

I skirted round a bunch of back yards and side-alleys, tagging potential bins in my mind as I went. I was ridiculously circumspect and jumpy - approaching any potential "target" I would put on my woolly hat to disguise my shaved head as an identifying mark, and attempt to look as nonchalant as possible. I must have taken that hat on and off about 100 times. One hoped-for target - a large industrial park - turned out to be offputting, with too many lights and cameras and several establishments working late with people moving about. But beyond it, and right on the edge of the town, was a deserted field where I collapsed for a rest (I'd been walking for almost two hours by this time), and got to watch rabbits hopping around in the light of the passing car headlights less than a hundred yards from my feet. It was magical, and weirdly inspiring just being out in the dark enjoying the sights and sounds. I didn't even miss my TV.

Finally, in a little walk of shops in a residential area I plucked up the courage, checked the area for people and lifted a bin lid for roughly a full second. It was full of empty cardboard boxes, naturally. But when I dropped that lid and walked very fast but extremely nonchalantly round the corner (pulling my hat down low) I felt like I'd robbed a bank, and I walked home with joy in my heart. All told I was out that night for 4 hours, and while I didn't bring back any spoils it was a wonderful and growing experience, and also burned off a lot of my fear ready for the next (successful) expedition. See Part 2 for details.

Mark Hewitt is an English foodie, cook, philosopher, geek, shaman and writer. At the start of 2007 he sold or gave away almost all his possessions and left on a backpacking journey round the world, the purpose being (at least in part) to figure out why he would want to do such a thing. You can follow his journey and find other articles at: Seeking An Extraordinary Life