Hulver's site || Comments || somewhere, somehow

I actually admire these guys. by Billy Goat (4.00 / 1) #1 Mon May 05, 2008 at 07:59:29 PM EST

I know a few of them. I'm too pussy to eat any of their findings myself, but them seem happy and health. More so then me, actually - though that's a drug and booze problem and not a nutritional issue.

They know when stuff is getting tossed and have this whole system worked out. They remind me of the Tramp from Lady and the Tramp or Roger Miller's King of the Road.

It's fun to watch them work.

have I been trolled? by coryking (2.00 / 0) #2 Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:02:55 PM EST

I dunno about health. How would you know if there was raw chicken or something that cross contaminated whatever goods you found? What if some jackass mixed rat poision into the trash just to screw with you?

Eh, to many problems just to fight the man. They should go burn down a McDonald's or something.
We are Siamese if you please. We are Siamese if you don't please.
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IIRC, Jin Wicked used to dumpster-dive for food by fluffy (4.00 / 1) #3 Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:22:15 PM EST

She stopped when the supermarket she'd dumpster-dive from would start covering the sandwiches with bleach, to prevent freeloaders like her from, you know, freeloading.

I might be confusing her with someone else though. But I'm pretty sure it was Jin Wicked.
busy bees buzz | sockpuppet revolution
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jeez by Merekat (2.00 / 0) #4 Tue May 06, 2008 at 03:50:10 AM EST

Now that is immoral. The bleach bit I mean. IIRC, there is a UK supermarket that donates their on-the-turn stuff to charities.

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: Sometimes, stores can't donate due to health codes by lm (2.00 / 0) #7 Tue May 06, 2008 at 08:36:24 AM EST

But I know of one local chain that calls a few different soup kitchens with a kindly informational message on the days that they're going to toss the milk because the expiration date has come and gone.
Here in the Ohio, however, it's far more common to sell leavings to hog farmers. There's a hieararchy for things like bread. It starts out at the local retail store. If it doesn't sell, it goes to the discount store. If it doesn't sell, it gets sold for hog slop.
There is no more degenerate kind of state than that in which the richest are supposed to be the best.
Cicero, The Republic
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Gotta support the top hat habit somehow by kwsNI (2.00 / 0) #6 Tue May 06, 2008 at 08:01:00 AM EST

Story makes you wonder though if A) it's even true, B) whether it was an accident that they've blown out of proportion (e.g. leaky bottle thrown in the dumpster contaminated the food one day), C) pissed off employee/manager or D) real corporate sanctioned abuse. Not that these people have an agenda they'd like to promote and would go to the extreme of embelishing a little.

Does remind me of a story though: We were in Home Depot getting paint mixed a few months ago and the guy next to us commented that all the pre-mixed discount paints were kinda ugly anymore. The clerk explained that too many people would come in, ask for a can to be mixed in their color, claim it wasn't really what they wanted and leave, only to come back and buy it off the discount rack the next day. So they started adding additional color before putting the mixed paints out on the discount racks.

Doesn't really make sense in a food environment though. The stores are hardly worried about losing business to dumpster divers. I don't think they're going to see a sudden decrease in deli purchases because their clients are all out back in the dumpster.

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: Well, yeah, JW stories are under-seasoned by fluffy (2.00 / 0) #11 Tue May 06, 2008 at 01:15:01 PM EST

and need to be taken with a grain of salt.
I've been waiting something like two years for her to finish a painting she started after I put a deposit on it as part of her "chartered work" experiment (where I put down a deposit as a promise to buy a non-commissioned work when it was finished). Early on I'd ask her every few months if she's had a chance to work on it (since she stopped sending regular updates talking about her work backlog) and she'd say it was coming soon. About a year ago I asked her if she's had a chance to progress on it and she apologized and said she'd refund my deposit as soon as she could after paying rent and so on and I told her I didn't want the deposit back, I just wanted the painting eventually.
She also said that when she finished preparing her "Lunch Break" books I'd get free signed copies to make up for the wait, which is yet another thing she's never gotten around to finishing. I understand she's going through a lot of depression-related problems right now but I have a feeling that a lot of it is somewhat self-inflicted.
busy bees buzz | sockpuppet revolution
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No troll. by Billy Goat (4.00 / 1) #9 Tue May 06, 2008 at 09:40:50 AM EST

They never just plunged into random dumpsters. In fact, in most cases, they had a relationship with a worker at the store and they just picked the stuff up before it got mixed in. When they didn't have a relationship, they swapped info among a loose network of like-minded scavengers about what dumpsters were safe and worth checking.

In cases where they did go into the dumpster, they'd check the food for spoilage. I think meat was always right out. I can't recall them ever picking out any bit of meat. Diary was always right out too.

They weren't too worried about food mixing with contaminated products. Often they'd find still sealed packing containers of stuff. Entire shipping crates of untouched fruit and veg.

I don't recall anybody getting food poisoning from it. Which is more than I can say about some of the restaurants I've been to.

I also never heard of anybody intentionally trying to poison anybody. Though I guess that's a remote danger.

Finally, I don't recall people being all "DAMN THE MAN" about it. Mostly it was just a sense of taking up the slack - like cruising for furniture on large-item pick-up day. They felt "Why let something go to waste if I can use it." It was more game-like than political. The self-righteousness of the "freegan" title is pretty off-putting.

Still, like I said, I had too strong a block to try it myself. Trash is trash to me. They could point to all the unbroken anti-tamper seals they like; I couldn't bring myself to do it.

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