Because we love you, we’ve been cross-posting Amanda Park Taylor‘s new freegan/dumpster diving project The Repurpose-Driven Life (here and here) and today brings us to the heart of the trash the matter: in a half-hour look through the trash at a local health-food deli, Ms. Taylor was able to salvage 34 pounds of usable food. Yup. All the gory evidence after the jump…
34 pounds
not too shabby for the first official foray. of course, in the weeks leading up tonight i’d been flexing my trash-picking muscles just a little bit, scouring the neighborhood trash for at least one [re]usable item every day. i actually didn’t have to do much scouring…
but tonight a first ‘jump’ into a commercial dumpster yielded this bounty:
7 packets vegan chili [$4.50 each]
3 boxes vegan bbq tofu [$4.99 each]
1/2 pound cooked shrimp [not pictured; for the dogs]
11 smallish yogurts, assorted flavors, plus one very slightly opened plain yogurt, which i elected not to eat myself, but instead fed to my dogs [probiotics are good for them too].
3 large bunches of parsley, which i can’t stand, but hoped to be able to get to someone who’d want it [failed]
2 bunches cilantro
11 apples, assorted varieties [gala, red delicious, granny smith, cripps pink, fuji] all organic
17 ripe pears, several varieties
4 eggplants
1 small yellow squash
2 peppers, one red, one green
5 assorted oranges
1 lemon, 1 lime, 1 grapefruit
the protein was a pleasant surprise; in the past i’ve found bread and produce in abundance, and a shocking amount of meat, which i don’t eat, but relatively little vegetarian protein. a dozen organic eggs were the highlight of one night a few years ago- i live on mostly eggs, beans, soy products, and seitan i make myself.
the yogurts were getting close to, but hadn’t passed their sell-by dates. sealed yogurt lasts a very long time- much longer than the packages would lead you to believe. don’t get me started on sell-by dates [post to come, very soon].
