newbie foraging wild food/dumpseter diving n.wales/chester

[amyle]

I'm a part time student doing web design. Is there anyone in North Wales near Wrexham and Chester interested in wild food foraging, dumpster diving, alternative energy, buliding and lifestyles, environmental issues e.t.c.?

I forage food from the wild, mainly to make preserves e.g. sauces, flavoured alcohol, jam and non-alcoholic drinks but also soups mainly from tasty nettles. I also grow some veg and fruit which I do organically. My other hobbies are snowboarding (dry ski slope), cycling, walking and photography. My interests also include conservation and environmental issues.

I'm interested in dumpster diving, the amount of food that is ok to eat that goes into landfill is such a waste. However I'm not sure about it legally as someone was almost prosecuted for 'stealing' plastic chairs out of a skip! but I'm considering giving it a go. Also I may find a baker e.t.c to go into just before closing to ask if they have anything. Is there anyone locally who dumpster dives and would like to teach a newbie?

I'm also interested in learning more about alternative lifestyles, alternative energy and building methods.

Amy

[entfaltend]

Some observations from dumpster diving for furniture and electronics and shit...

Large corporate stores are completely worthless. They often have policies of destroying usable goods before throwing them away (bleaching food, slashing cushions, smashing glass or plastic parts). I was checking out the skips behind a Costco in my home town and there were brand new couches, tables, chairs, and exercise equipment, that'd had paint thrown on them, been smashed up with hammers, and had any cushions cut up with a razor. Truly disgusting.

They also often have a trash compactor. Now, I dunno about you, but free shit isn't worth crawling into a chamber coated in slimy garbage-based lube that, if some uncaring person turns on the machinery at the other end, will crush me into a pulp. That's assuming the thing isn't locked anyway.

As far as the smaller joints go...

Strike fast. Look out for cameras. I almost scored as many books as I could carry once but lingered too long cherry picking from the dumpster and got chased off by management and forced to ditch the spoils because I had been spotted by an out of the way security camera.

I can't speak for legality in your locale, but legal or not the best way to do things is to go unnoticed.

Also, I am not sure if these sorts of things exist anywhere near you, but in one smaller town I lived in for a while there was a waste transfer station where people dropped off their household stuff to be picked up and taken to the main landfill. It was unmanned, and scavengers were not discouraged from picking through the stuff, there was even a covered area where people could put still useful goods out. I scored a ton of nice stuff from that place, and there was plenty that I couldn't use but might've been worthwhile to other people. There was a snowmachine sitting under the awning one time around.

[Bitter Ashes]

Ouch. I spent my teens in Wrexham. tbh, I'd not go in the town centre at night there. If you're in QP then I think you're a bit screwed tbh as you'd need a group to be walking around at night. Chester's got more cameras than the BBC, but so long as you avoid them you're relativly safe. DO NOT carry a weapon around Wrexham if you're dumpster diving. If the cops catch you then they can pin armed tresspass and burglary on you, which if the judge really doesnt like you can get you life. Try to not look like a student either and learning to mimick the local accent's a must if the cops do spot you. If they hear an English accent then you're going to jail. Bear in mind too that the Wrexham PCSOs are armed and notorous for thier heavy hand. And if that's not enough, there's the gangs to worry about who'd love nothing more than to spend an hour torturing somebody they think nobody will miss. I'm sure you're aware that it's a WDL stronghold and that sentiment's been there for decades, especially since the QP riots, so if you look like a lefty then watch your back.

After writing all that, I'm kinda thinking that it's just a bad idea in general to go dumpster diving in Wrexham. It's simply not safe.