Dumpster Diving in LA: From Trash to Treasure | Saving America's Food Waste Documentary 

What’s even more sad is most large businesses lock up their trash or have compactors so absolutely nothing can be salvaged

I don’t dumpster dive for food but I do bottles and cans and redeem them. I also go to colleges after they close and there’s so much good stuff that people throw out. I once found over $100 in an envelope and many more things I’ve sold or just use myself.

I used to do this when I was homeless, and to be honest with you I wanted to do it now that I have a home. There is so much good food that is thrown away it's insane. It's sad to think they don't come up with a better solution of getting rid of it because there's a lot of people that are hungry in our country.

What bothers me the most when meat is tossed like that...its an animal that lived and died only to be trashed. It saddens me.

I've watched this three times over the course of my life. Always a pleasure and an inspiration.

2022: This looks like HEAVEN

Awesome video and awareness, I hope everyone can pull through and accomplish a good percentage of eliminating food waste! A huge thumbs up to the dumpster divers👍👍👍

Thank you for this, a dumpster Queen from Florida, working on ways to save the planet and help those who need it

Also, when diving for non-food items, remember-the good stuff is always at the bottom!

I love dumpster diving. here in montreal there are lots of people who dive and then setup community fridges! Its amazing.

how the companies refrain from donating stuff and insist throwing it. this depicts the state of mind and heart of the corporations...

I love this Doctor.

This is such huge disrespect to the farmers who toil to produce good crops. They are working against so many odds, climatic conditions plant diseases ect and all that simply goes to thrash. Even worse is the animals killed in thousands to get that meat into the market which is again a huge disrespect to the very life that ended and was meant to feed but just gets rotten and thrown as thrash. It's time each one of us make even the tiniest effort to stop food waste.

I'm a dumpster diver in Adelaide Australia with a RU-vid channel, Thanks for the wonderful video 😊

I’ve been a Dumpster Diver for 20 years. I live in NJ, so I find tons of really good meat / refrigerated food from Nov to March. My Food Bill has been $0.00 for over 5 years. Also, I sell things like dog food and beer to make extra $$.

Excellent documentary! Show’s one of the many things that is wrong with modern society. Its a shame and almost criminal that these business are allowed to throw out perfectly good food every day. Many thanks to the hard working individuals trying to change things for the better and doing what they can to help salvage food and get it to those in need.

I grew up in a commune in London in the 1980s and the adults would go midnight shopping and the results would be in two fridges with a selection of sandwiches, pastry's, yoghurts, desserts, fruit, vegetables, cheese, meats, and other treats. All was still edible no one was ever sick and we lived well.

Wow, this is incredible and so inspiring! I am already getting 95% of my food from dumpsters, but this doc inspires to take more food and find a place for it. Thank you for making this. I have a theory about why grocery stores don’t want to donate food waste. I think it would fit in nicely with your analysis of the situation we have here in the US (if not being a little cynical): it is in their best interest as a for-profit company to destroy the excess food rather than give it away or sell it discounted. If they began donating food at a significant scale, they would be forced to price their food at a lower (or heavily fluctuating) cost as a whole, and lose their consistent price points of products and ultimately, profits. It is worth it for them to lose maybe 5% of what they buy from distributors if they can offer shoppers the exact same selection of food at the same price every day. One may ask though, with increasing awareness of food waste, wouldn’t donating food waste be a good marketing scheme for them to get behind? The problem is that this opens a giant can of worms that would begin to change the entire cultural understanding of food waste. If Whole Foods were to start donating all their food and advertising that they do this, other grocery stores would be obligated to do the same and ultimately the demand for grocery store food goes down and with it, their prices. While this would be great, I don’t see companies like Walmart or Safeway going for it. I’d love to hear your thoughts. And keep at it!

They certainly made a point about getting food for free that they couldn't afford to buy. Some food is so expensive.

I worked for a large Midwest grocery store in the meat department in a wealthy area watching lots of food go to waste l asked why they refused to let me give competitive stores like l did out west they first told me rich people would pay and it was better for the markups eventually thanks to haveing a uncle and aunt in higher-ups they allowed me to give to the last local foodbanks that plus my diligent efforts resulted in $20.000 dollars in savings in cooler cost. It was extremely satisfying at the time l left after a argument with my supervisor and decided to leave the conflict

It appears that a lot of these grocery stores as a part of a parenting company and its unfortunate that despite the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Act being in place that the stores still refuse to give it to food banks that serve families daily especially food with a short shelf life within a few days. Love this doc. Thanks for sharing.

Here in Portland Oregon they lock that down so well you rarely find one you can raid. People, individuals, on the other hand are very generous and leave restaurant meal leftovers out for others and people leave household goods and furnishings on the sidewalk so that's cool at least. Our business community is all just a bunch of selfish, thoughtless people I guess....

I love frugal living because the cost of food and everything is going up these days

I remember how ashamed I felt when I initially started dumpster diving few years ago...now its common routine, and my expenses for food are exactly 0 dollars...so much for the inflation "problem" haha!

Cheers

The stores are locking the dumpsters to protect themselves from liability. If someone falls off a dumpster and cracks their head open, the store is exposed to liability for an injury that happened on their property.

I haven't personally seen anyone dumpster dive in the UK but there is online sites to practically do this for them. I have used this today to buy dumpster destined food at throw out time using too good to go website in the UK hopefully I'll get some good stuff this evening

you just wasted a can of whipped cream for that graffiti

I'm dying to find a big lot to donate! Unfortunately I don't have the money to donate much food and at the food prices now. Wow you can barely afford to feed yourself. I hope to find a lot to give to charities and churches

Its like going from one extreme to the other extreme, from food scarcity during World War II to food waste in 2023. Hopefully we soon find a middle ground.

I want to do it, and I have a bad back. My son refuses to get into the dumpster, so I have to find someone who will.

I do it cause I'm homeless and been for a while. One of the last safety nets in my country is why I do it. Can't build my own house in a spot no one barely ever even walks at cause if it's found police comes and tears it, can't grow my own food cause police comes and rips it, can't get welfare cause it's reserved for immigrants (Sweden) and we simply gotta bite down, raise pension age, raise taxes and if u get injured in work like i did society says too bad. And i don't ha ebegying in me and i don't steal so what the f to do, why i don't like that this is becoming like a "hip" thing people do.

I found $4,000 one time in a dumpster when I was diving in it I think it was one of the employees who must have thrown it out by accident Hoops too bad my game

That's not true, That's where the poor working man gets food from, also the homeless, facts just the facts !!!

I would never lower myself to go through skips, degrading is an understatement 😫

Food should be donated to the homeless not dumped in bins.

So sad this is happening

V USA na Floride som vela homeless people videla brat jedlo z odpadu tam je to normalne

Only right audio

If he expects his wife to do ALL the cleaning up, then yeah I'd be mad like her as well.

In France trowing away food is forbidden. Compagnies are by law obligated to give it away to good causes. Those compagnies are them responsabel to make the food save goeds it goes to the people of the foodbank… such a shame these practices! EU is way further then the US when comes to food waste!😊 why dont they make package of the good items that are not damaged and sell it for reduced prices? In my country when something in damaged in a package they take the remaining item and make a reduction bag from it… like too good to waste type of package ( sometime reduction to 70%)

When the narrator laments all the food he cannot use...why don't you create a network of foodbanks, and soup kitchens to donate to?? buy one chest freezer for keeping meat found for donation, especially, small berries too

Wait...African children aren't the only ones starving. Mix up those clips please.

It’s old story, now us got too many homeless to feed

Now bleach is poured on the food in dumpsters

Wear gloves at least. And this is why I don’t eat at people I don’t know. At this point however it is about survival. 🤷🏽‍♀️

I heard that its illegal to take out rubbish from USA bins as once something end up in bin-it belongs to city council

I'd you don't want to be a part of the great capitalist system go live in Botswana

But how do you know if chemicals hadn’t been on the food- and no way I would eat expired meat

Annoying music

Gross. Raw meat is thrown out from lack of refrigeration in addition to past due.

Fake old video

Get a job that's child abuse feeding the kids trash... OMG