A good while ago I mentioned the wonderful Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's documentary called "Hugh's War on Waste" in which, among other things, he went dumpster diving around the back of one of the major UK supermarkets (can't remember which one) where he and a volunteer from a local soup kitchen were hauling out whatever they could to take back to the soup kitchen to provide food for people in difficult circumstances. Hugh asked the young man if he had ever been arrested and he said "no, but I sat in the back of a police car once", at which point he begged them to arrest him. The supermarket weren't going for it though, of course, because of all the bad publicity that would engender.
I think subsequently supermarkets began pouring bleach over food in order to make it inedible - how sad is that! In the video above, if I caught it correctly, they were throwing out what seemed to be whole bins of shampoo and other toiletries. It is just so, so shameful, when half the world doesn't have enough to eat, and even in a wealthy country like America there are people who could use a little help. This guy is right - and again, I say, it isn't a dig at America because it goes on everywhere, it's just that this guy happened to be filming at a Walmart in Ohio. Good on him, is all I can say.
Last year the French enacted a law whereby any store with a surface area of more than 4,000 square metres (I think - I'm just typing this from memory) had to hook up with a local charity/community group in order that food that they were going to throw away be handed over to them rather than having bleach poured over it or going to landfill. It's not a panacea of course, as I recently posted on how low stocks at my local food bank were, but isn't it about time others followed suit. To be throwing away these huge quantities of food when people are going hungry is just appalling. Well done Gary Joe Ahms!
I just will never understand. Don't they pay for garbage removal, so it doesn't even make sense financially. Are they really worried about litigation fro dumpster diving? Then donate it. Heck get free good publicity out of it and have a film crew document them doing a donation every month.
ReplyDeleteYou're absolutely right. And if they are worried about litigation have everyone that takes some of this stuff sign some kind of waiver - it can't be that hard can it. At the end of his working life my brother worked in the kitchens at a local army barracks. The troops were wonderfully fed - pretty much anything they wanted - but if the chef got it wrong and there were leftovers EVERYTHING had to be pitched. Huge trays of lasagne, roast beef dinners, the lot - which - and even if you "forget about Africa" - is just appalling when so many of our own pensioners/young families etc. are struggling!
DeleteI can't imagine stores throwing perfectly good items out but I guess they do it all the time. Very sad
ReplyDeleteI think it's wicked. I just wish someone, somewhere had the balls to say "enough of this nonsense, just let's do what is right for once"! Who knows, maybe they will.
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