Local Dumpster Guide Thread [Archive]

ellipsis

29th November 2010, 02:32

So if people want to post cities or areas that you would feel comfortable enough giving people advice in dumpstering in said areas, that is what this thread is for, please contact people via PM for advice.

I can offer some advice on San Francisco, Honolulu and parts of Vermont.

Edit: also western MA

Bitter Ashes

2nd December 2010, 11:52

I know some of the spots in Hudds for all your skipping needs :)

Sosa

3rd December 2010, 07:09

If anyone has advice for Grand Rapids, MI, speak up!

ellipsis

18th January 2011, 07:11

If anyone has advice for Grand Rapids, MI, speak up!
What chain grocery stores are in town? Trader Joes?

Property Is Robbery

18th January 2011, 07:29

Advice for trader joes please

ellipsis

18th January 2011, 07:40

Advice for trader joes please

Each store is different. In san diego you guys don't have compost pickup like in San fran, so the food, most of with will be in packages should be in separate, clear trash bags in the regular dumpster, with the other store trash. I have never seen surplus food mixed with the nasty trash in the same bag at TJ's.
IIRC all the TJ's in SD are outside of downtown which is a good sign as they will likely have their dumpsters in the parking lot/behind the store.

So just go at night, around 11pm-1am and see what you find.

If they have a compactor or their dumspter is inside a sealed loading dock area, u might be out of luck. U could always ask the store manager if they want to donate surplus food to th group, they might be agreeable.

Sosa

20th January 2011, 00:00

What chain grocery stores are in town? Trader Joes?

Meijer, Family Fare, D&W.

Broletariat

20th January 2011, 00:02

Any tips for a food lion, or wal-mart?

ellipsis

20th January 2011, 04:11

Meijer, Family Fare, D&W.
Sorry, never heard of those. You can always ask the produce manager, s/he might be cool.

Any tips for a food lion, or wal-mart?
Food lion? also unknown, all walmart use compactors so no.

Tablo

20th January 2011, 04:17

Any advice on Whole Foods and Subway?

ellipsis

20th January 2011, 04:48

I've gotten some bread out of subway's dumspter before, not bad.

Wholefoods usually have compactors, but maybe not always. Sometime they leave out food here in SF, like the last two watermelons in those big boxes or some other fruit. I usually just hit up their free samples, including soaps etc. Also they have a corporate level anti-FNB policy, so they are yuppy scum, fyi.

You can always ask at teh bakery and produce departments, or even the store manager, they won't always say yes but that is how FNB does it in most of the country.

Tablo

20th January 2011, 05:04

I know FNB in Birmingham gets stuff from Whole Foods, but I'm not sure about my area... I will check it out.

ellipsis

20th January 2011, 05:13

I know FNB in Birmingham gets stuff from Whole Foods, but I'm not sure about my area... I will check it out.

Thats cool. What I am refering to is the fact that at the corporate level, Whole Foods Inc. ordered a store in orlando, FL to stop supplying orlando FNB with food, because the city of orlando was trying to stop them from serving in the city.

Tablo

20th January 2011, 05:22

Oh, that's no fun. :/

ellipsis

20th January 2011, 05:56

Oh, that's no fun. :/

Fast forward, they are now in federal court with the city. solidarity!

Tablo

20th January 2011, 06:12

Wow, that's great! Can't understand why the city would care about people giving out free food.

Bitter Ashes

20th January 2011, 15:30

Wow, that's great! Can't understand why the city would care about people giving out free food.
If poor people can get food for free then they will be less likely give thier cash to big buisnesses. "Think of the poor corporations' profits" will be the likely motivation, although a lot of this will be hidden away with messages about health and safety issues of eating out of date food.

ellipsis

20th January 2011, 18:54

Wow, that's great! Can't understand why the city would care about people giving out free food.

What hannah said, also cities like to hide poor people, food not bombs is the opposite of that, huge lines of "seemingly homeless" people in public parks presents a "negative" image of the city.

Rusty Shackleford

20th January 2011, 21:26

ellipsis

21st January 2011, 01:54

Where are they Dunk n donuts in Cali? I thought that was an east coast only chain. lone star bucks are likely to have a dumpster, but they don't make any food onsite, its all delivered from regional packing centers, but you could always look.

Safeway in Hawaii had a great dumpster, the ones i have been to in california use compactors, although one time in Pacifica,CA they left a whole family sized frozen tray of orange chicken and rice right next to the compactor. Never heard of raley's or winco, see above generic advice.

Bright Banana Beard

23rd January 2011, 03:31

Le Libérer

23rd January 2011, 03:43

I have also found on Monday evenings is good timing. The clerks clean out the produce bins on that day.

ellipsis

24th January 2011, 06:36

I at atlantic city, nj. We got bunches of casinos, many small deli store, the city is very similar to NYC. We also have dollar tree.
Most store here is mostly local, so what are good way to have a good dumpster diving

Casinos sounds like the worst possible place to ever try dumpsters, guys named Vinnie, etc.

dollar stores need to keep their overhead INSANELY low, so i can't imagine they throw out very much.

Delis might be a good place to start, premade sandwiches in such expire in days so they get thrown out.

The best way to go about it is as described earlier, lots of trial and error, check back at dumpsters, even if nothing was turned up before.

If you live in the city and can get out to the suburban strip malls, you'd probably have better luck.

ellipsis

25th January 2011, 03:45

found this old thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/dumpster-diving-t35844/index.html) which has some good tips in it.

Delirium

25th January 2011, 21:44

If anyone has advice for Grand Rapids, MI, speak up!

Not too familiar with GR but over in mount pleasant there is really good dumpstering. I've never seen a meijers without indoor dumpsters or a trash compactor. See if there is a Kroger in GR, the best dumptering (for food) ive ever had has been there.

Delirium

25th January 2011, 21:53

You can go around the store, especially in produce and take note of expiration dates on what you want.

Alot of food items will automatically thrown away when returned, so just buy it, return it, and go get it from the dumpster later. :D

happy hunting

ellipsis

1st February 2011, 05:27

Sticky?

bcbm

1st February 2011, 07:06

dumpsters usually are...

ellipsis

18th March 2011, 00:03

I am thinking about starting a dumpster's diver/waste reclamation union. the first thing i want to do is make a semi-public google map where people can post the locations of dumpsters in San Francisco, when the best time to go is, how often they get what, etc. sort of like a dumpster wiki-map. What do people think of this idea?

Fulanito de Tal

18th March 2011, 00:23

Florida

Publix may give you left over bread on a regular basis if you tell them that you are feeding it to your farm animals (pigs, cows, etc.).

ellipsis

18th March 2011, 00:39

Florida

Publix may give you left over bread on a regular basis if you tell them that you are feeding it to your farm animals (pigs, cows, etc.).

Its amazing but stores often will give it to you for animals, but not you or other people. So this is actually a good trick.

ellipsis

25th March 2011, 21:06

I recently started a SF bay area dumpster wiki-map using the My Maps feature of Google Maps. It just got started and its through invite-only so hopefully it will grow as people start using it.
I am choosing to keep it unlisted so that it grows through actual interactions between freegans and doesn't just come up for a google search of "san francisco dumpsters" and n00bs come and mess up a good thing.

Mari3l and Hannah Kay, and others should start ones for their areas.

ellipsis

28th March 2011, 04:13

looks like this at this point.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/_0xCx5PWyccM/TY_7UXAPGGI/AAAAAAAABek/4go6xNLvSgA/Picture%2020.png

ellipsis

25th April 2011, 01:01

and it grows as more people begin to use and contribute to it.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-gGq2dqwYzOc/TbS5pRdmFrI/AAAAAAAABfM/suUNgYRAd8I/s800/Picture%2B6.png

ellipsis

26th March 2012, 04:37

even larger now!!!!

http://www.revleft.com/vb/picture.php?albumid=324&pictureid=9027

ВАЛТЕР

26th March 2012, 12:24

I don't dumpster dive, however the other day I saw a nice documentary on it on RT. The documentary is called "Dive!" produced by Jeremy Seifert.

I tried to find a link to the documentary on the web, but I couldn't.

On RT's site it says that you can stream it online when it is on-air.

http://rt.com/programs/documentary/dive-jeremy-rts-food/

ВАЛТЕР

26th March 2012, 13:03

Here's the trailer

0HlFP-PMW6E

ellipsis

5th March 2013, 19:19

Though i dont dumpster dine, i actually would like to see this as a sort of how to guide if you got the time for any freegans out there.

maybe give details about some major stores like Safeway, Raleys, WinCo, Starbucks, Dunk 'n' Donuts. it might help streamline things.

Long after I posted this I started dumpstering Starbucks. Te nice thing is that they separate out stuff; all of the sandwiches and salads are tossed I their own bag, and can often be more than you can carry, then the behind the counter trash has lots of milk cartons etc. but also has coffee beans in shiny foil bags, at times up to a pound.

Leftsolidarity

5th March 2013, 19:25

I saw someone brought up Subway. I had a friend that used to work at one in WI. I know that at the end of the day they take all the bread they didn't use and put it in 1 or 2 bags, count it, then throw it out.

An assload of fresh and free bread.

ellipsis

5th March 2013, 19:27

Ele'ill

5th March 2013, 19:36

homegrown terror

6th March 2013, 03:17

some big-name electronics retailers will throw out old shelf-display laptops and electronics when they're no longer on display. if you find out when they're updating their selection, you might be able to score some nice techy gizmos (you'll probably have to buy new power cables for them, but hey, you just got a $500 laptop for free, so drop a hundred on a power source and you're still up $400)

BIXX

6th March 2013, 07:44

I'm considering trying this, and I just wanted to ask if it was very difficult? I've heard some say it's really easy, and some say it is incredibly hard. Personally, it doesn't sound too hard, but maybe I'm missing something.

Also, any tips for Portland, OR? Trader Joes and Subway sound like good bets, (especially for that bread, yum!) but I figure the more I know, the better. Thank you!

homegrown terror

6th March 2013, 22:43

if you can meet your basic needs through other locations, find a major chain bookstore and go into their bins. when they send back unsold "mass market" paperbacks, they only send back the front cover and throw away the book itself (since the copyright is worth more than the paper itself) you'll have to weed out a lot of cheesy romance novels, but you'll find a good bit of scifi, fantasy, true crime and mystery books that have just been thrown away, yours for the taking.

Rugged Collectivist

17th April 2013, 17:00

I remember reading part of a book that I believe was linked on this site where a guy mentions that pizza places throw out all their stuff at the end of the day. Is this true? Also, how safe is this stuff? I like the idea of free pizza but I'm also a hypochondriac and I have reservations about dumpster food.

ellipsis

17th April 2013, 17:09

It is true, although some times pig farmers have dibs. You can often go in right before closing and just ask for free slices. Or take them from the dumpster, likely they will be in a trashbag by themselves.

Ele'ill

17th April 2013, 22:05

Also, how safe is this stuff?

safer than starving

Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages

17th April 2013, 22:22

Or, you could dumpster scrap metal from the product resets at big retail chains, they usually leave it out back often in dumpster bins devoid of any type of warnings and such, also, metal items (BBQ grills, etc) are left in an open trailer with no caution signs and no trespassing warning signs and can be loaded into a pickup or into shopping carts and scrapped as well. Then you can buy food.

I just found and briefly browsed this site http://www.scrapmetaljunkie.com/233/how-to-scrap-a-gas-grill-or-barbecue-2

This is a good point but talk about competition. Its been a long time since I had to dive for food but it always felt like I was competing against lame ass managers with an axe to grind or irrational corporate policies not other people. But I've seen scrap pickers fucking get in to it with each other 2 or 3 times and its not like I make a point of hanging around dumpsters. Maybe its just Ohio.