6 MONDAY, MARCH 12, 2018 LEICESTER MERCURY MONDAY, MARCH 12, 2018 LEICESTER MERCURY 7

Like us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter

NEWS Facebook.com/leicestermercury @Leicester_Merc NEWS
‘Skipping’ or ‘dumpster diving’ is when people look through supermarket and shop bins to see if they have thrown anything usable away. On a cold evening, JACOB JARVIS headed out with a couple who do this around Leicestershire, and he was taken aback by what he found

Plenty to give
PLENTY of us have morals we food. “The amount of bread. valuable resource for them, dispensable, is what keeps after a late shift. I suppose if
For a list of foods claim to uphold but, for most It’s criminal. If you look at the realistically they would like to businesses going, and keeps they stock too much, that
found on the night: of us, we do the minimum we cost of wheat and energy and see it stopped. And rather things being thrown away. means I’m never at a loss for
can to appease our con- water and in human labour. To than everyone rely on large “Waste is part of the pro- what I want. I don’t like the
leicestermercury.co.uk PICTURE: BETH WALSH sciences. think it’s just thrown straight in outlets for foods, for more loc- cess,” they say. “They (busi- thought of loaf after loaf being
PHOTOGRAPHY
When I sit with Michaela the bin,” Michaela says. alised outlets to be used or nesses) expect waste.” thrown away either, though. I
‘SKIPPER’: Michaela Smith, 57, I realise I’ve struck They regale me with some of more people to grow their own But then, they only expect suppose the trade-off

you food for

Smith, who has fed
more than 20 people
with food she has re-
trieved from shop bins
upon one of the few people
who said “enough is enough”
and she meant it. She doesn’t
want to support supermarkets,
so she doesn’t. And, without
them knowing it, the unwitting
businesses practically support
her.
the most unusual bin finds.
These include a Christmas
tree thrown out at the start of
December, a whole container
of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream,
300 eggs in one place, a skip
so full of beer they could not
take it all and a bottle of Jim
fruit and vegetables.
“I would like to see more
people grow their own food.
“The miracle of growing and
eating what you’ve planted
benefits your body, as much
as that sounds like crazy
hippyism,” Michaela says.
waste, because we expect
everything we want there to
buy straight away. We don’t
like to see empty shelves or
stores out of the products we
crave.
I cannot judge the waste,
because I’m part of the prob-
between morals and conveni-
ence is a hard one to balance.
I admit this to Michaela’s
partner, who seems at a loss
when he tells me: “It’s every-
one’s fault, it’s not just the
companies’ fault. People need
to change their consumption

thought...
This is because the majority
of her food comes from “skip-
ping”, where people head to
shops and scope out their
bins after hours. They then re-
claim any food deemed un-
worthy of the shelves but that
is still, plenty of people would
agree, okay to eat.
Bean. That’s not all. As they Her partner explained how lem, I hate if there’s no bread habits. For the good of hu-
recall the list at points they this notion, that everything is when I turn up to the shop manity.”
seem irritated, others amused,
and more often than not gen-
erally exasperated by the
whole nonsensical situation.
Hundreds of pounds worth
of clothes. Orchids, in pots,
thrown out for being out of

E
ating food from out of a
bin. I mull the thought
over and no matter how
I try to make sense of it, I
struggle to.
I’m wasteful with what I buy
from the supermarket, I have to
admit, and I throw away my
fair share of fruit and veg.
I buy it with the best inten-
tions, eat one portion, then
chuck because it goes mushy
and off. Some shops, though,
throw out a lot of food that’s
fine to eat, by plenty of people’s
standards.
That’s not me jumping on the
environmentalist bandwagon,
and I’m not trying to shame
conglomerates or shock you. It
simply does happen.
I know this because I went out
with two “skippers”, who res-
cue castaway food from bins at
shops before it gets thrown
away, and found plenty.
It is 11pm when we head out. I
jump in the back of a large es-
tate with Michaela Smith, 57,
and her partner, who does not
want to be named, surrounded
by a swarm of reusable shop-
ping bags, before we head off to
one of their regular spots.
When we park up I’m nervous
and, in my mind, it feels more
like committing a bank rob-
bery instead of a rummage
through rubbish.
I find myself crouched behind
bins, like I’m in some sort of
shootout.
The lights are still on and the
corrugated steel shutter is up
on the back of the store. With
the efficiency of a production
line, Michaela’s partner lifts
the lids, has a brief look and
drags out plastic sacks full of
food, repeats this and passes
them to Michaela and me.
Then we look for anything us-
able.
We get a few things then we
realise we’ve been spotted.
I’m told security staff aren’t
always hostile, but sometimes
it’s just not worth giving them
the chance to be. So we load the
few picks into the car and head
to our next stop.
“The night manager (at one
shop) can be a bit funny,” Mi-
chaela tells me. “She’s come
out and shouted ‘get away from
those bins’ before, and she’s
hidden behind a door and
jumped out at us. But some
don’t mind, we were hiding
from a worker before and they
told us we could get on with it.”
It’s a cold evening, I’ve a few
layers on, but I’ve forgotten my
Leicestershire Police said
“skipping” or “dumpster
diving” was not
something they had dealt
with reports of, but if it
was reported to the force
as theft it would be
looked into.
gloves and whenever we’re out-
side I regret it.
It strikes me, though, that the
first bins we went to, and all the
bins throughout the night after
that, don’t actually smell. In
fact, because of the temperat-
ure, the food we’re getting is
practically refrigerated.
I’m told sometimes in sum-
mer it gets bad but quite often
it’s not actually as filthy as you
might imagine.
I ask how you know what to
pick and what to leave.
“Use your nose and your eyes,
like people did for thousands of
years before industry invented
sell by dates,” comes the re-
sponse which, really, I should
have guessed myself.
I’m rifling through a bin again
and I start to realise how ri-
diculous this is. Pizzas, in their
boxes, with yellow reduced
price stickers on them. Just a
few hours before, they were
still being bought by people
thinking they were getting a
bargain. Now I’m seeing this
stuff in the bin, I realise how
much they aren’t.
I’m finding plenty of expens-
ive stuff, too, brands, special
treats – all sleek black pack-
aging with silver letters. There
are even flowers in here. I grab
at handfuls of daffodils that
didn’t get the chance to bloom
before they were chucked away.
I’m back in the car and what
were initially empty bags,
lightly brushing against me,
are stocked up sacks, slightly
crushing my left leg as I sit be-
hind the driver’s seat. I can’t
help but laugh when I say how
ridiculous it seems. The veter-
than you could probably grab
in a store in that time, unless
you were practising for an ap-
pearance on supermarket
sweep.
I’m shocked at the amount we
leave behind, too. I open one
bin. It’s big and grey, not much
different to the sort of council
bins you see lining the streets
on collection day.
PICTURE: JACOB JARVIS It is full of sandwiches and
‘WASTE’: Some of the baps and wraps.
food the skippers pulled All the deluxe breakfast ones,
stuffed with bacon, sausage
from bins that night and egg, the sort of thing you
might treat yourself to on pay-
day. I nab a sandwich and a
an skippers smile at my naiv- couple of pasties out of there for
ety. Within an hour and only a lunch the next day.
few stops, we’ve got more food And one of them actually has
WHAT THE SHOPS HAD TO SAY ABOUT PRODUCE PUT IN THEIR BINS
ACCORDING to experts, a huge
amount of the food produced
worldwide does not get eaten.
An FAO (Food and Agricul-
ture Organisation of the
United Nations) report from
2011 stated some 1.3billion tons
of food is thrown away annu-
ally. Studies by Wrap, an envir-
onmental action group, estim-
ated that £13 billion of food was
chucked away in the UK in
2015.
After our night “skipping”,
every major supermarket was
contacted and asked what their
stance on “dumpster diving”
was. Aldi, Asda, Morrisons,
Sainsbury’s and Tesco were
contacted, but had not respon-
ded at the time of publication.
LIDL
“Maximising efficiencies and
reducing waste is a core part of
our business model as a dis-
counter, and are continuously
exploring opportunities to
drive waste down further. For
example, we choose not to print
any ‘best before’ dates on much
Michaela, with her partner,
has been doing it for two-and-
a-half years. They live in large
shared accommodation in
Leicester, and they have fed
huge groups of people from
the produce they find.
“We’ve had times where
we’ve had 23 people living
here and we’ve all ate for free.
“We have weekly house
meals and we try and cook
with what there is,” Michaela
says.
The most wasteful times are
around public holidays, “when
the shops expect people to
stock up”, I am told, and
bread is the most discarded
the next day’s date on it. “Some-
body not paying much atten-
tion,” Michaela’s partner says.
But we don’t take them all, be-
cause there isn’t an easy way
for us to store them, so they
could end up thrown anyway.
Then there is the fish and
meat we have to be wary of,
who knows how long it’s been
out of the fridge, so it’s left be-
hind, too.
We head home and start to de-
cant everything from the car.
We’ve got a shopping trolley
and there’s enough to fill it
twice over.
As we unpack it we spread it
out on a table, then it starts to
overflow on to the floor as we
section it up.
of our fresh produce, allowing
and encouraging customers to
assess certain products them-
selves.
“Whie we reduce the price of a
range of products by 30 per cent
leading up to their expiry date,
it is inevitable that there will be
instances where food items are
not sold and therefore have to
be redistributed.”
WAITROSE
“We’re dedicated to reducing
food waste and don’t send any
food to landfill. We want as
much of the food we produce to
be eaten – this could be by our
customers, partners (employ-
ees) or those in need. If it can’t
be donated it goes to anaerobic
digestion, a last resort.
“Our shops donate surplus
food to a number of local charit-
ies and groups.”
MARKS & SPENCER
“Reducing food waste remains
a key priority.
“As part of our sustainability
plan, Plan A, we’ve worked
hard to reduce food waste
bloom. Bins full of crockery
sets, we assume deemed to
be out of fashion. A power
drill, with a tiny faulty sticker,
but that worked fine.
Sometimes, one broken item
in a multipack can mean the
whole thing gets binned, or a
dented bit of packaging war-
rants chucking its contents
away, they tell me.
The pair say that they go
skipping because they hate to
see the waste.
They hate to see the world
and nature ravaged for pro-
duce, which is then chucked
away for no good reason.
Although it has proved a
I tell the guys: “Before I came
out with you, I honestly didn’t
think we’d find this much.”
I mean it, I thought there had
to be a catch. I’d be crawling
through gunk and muck, get-
ting splattered by unknown bin
juices for barely anything in re-
turn. Actually it was more re-
laxing than a busy supermar-
ket on a Sunday – no screaming
kids, no angry queue jumpers,
no sinking feeling when the
cashier reads out the price –
and all I got was a little bit of
grime on my fingertips. My
comments merit the same sort
of smiles as my earlier shock
did.
I’m told: “That was a pretty
small night for us, really.”
through better forecasting and
reducing prices on food near-
ing its expiry date at the end of
the day. Where we do have a
food surplus, we’ve connected
stores to local food charities.
“Where there is any remain-
ing food waste, we send this to
energy (anaerobic digestion) –
nothing goes to landfill.”
CO-OP
“We work extremely hard to
cut down on waste. We are com-
mitted to working towards con-
tinuing reductions by raising
awareness, increasing educa-
tion and changing people’s per-
ceptions.
“Some of the ways we do this
include our distribution centre
in Leicester working closely
with Fareshare East Midlands
to make sure any foods surplus
is redistributed. In terms of
people entering bins our to find
any wasted food, we would
urge anyone, for their safety, to
not engage in this practice.”
■ For extended comments:
leicestermercury.co.uk