More than a response to food insecurity: demographics and social networks of urban dumpster divers

Abstract

Paradoxically, cities in the developed world are simultaneously increasing levels of food waste and food insecurity. Social assistance programmes intend to provide vulnerable populations with food, but many people instead choose to collect food from municipal waste streams, including “dumpster diving”. Most food-insecure people who dumpster dive do so from need, to supplement food from, or avoid stigma related to, social assistance programmes. However, it is increasingly common for food-secure people to choose to dumpster dive. We used participant observation and semi-structured interviews to characterise urban dumpster divers in Montréal, Quebec, identify what items they dive for, and describe their social connectivity. We found that while some divers identified as food insecure and extremely poor, most did not; primarily, divers were Caucasian, university students, holding an “alternative” identity, and without a full-time job or children. Divers required specialised knowledge and mostly recuperated food waste from grocery stores and bakeries (e.g. breads, fruits, vegetables, meat, dairy products) that significantly improved the composition and quality of their diets. Unused goods were largely gifted and rarely sold. Food-insecure divers tended to be isolated, while food-secure divers had strong social connections because they frequently exchanged knowledge and goods and held common values. Our findings indicate that the dumpster diving community in Montréal is a heterogeneous group recuperating a range of goods for a variety of reasons that reduces food waste and alleviates food insecurity. We suggest that municipal policy-makers encourage the redistribution of potentially useful goods between local businesses and willing recuperators.

Keywords:

• dumpster diving
• food insecurity
• recuperator
• food waste
• freeganism
• binning

Acknowledgements

We thank the kind participants in this study who patiently shared their unique experiences and ideas with us. We also thank Dana Holtby, Samuel Weiser Novak, and Aerin Jacob for comments on earlier versions of this manuscript.

Notes

1. Food insecurity is defined as “limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways” (Anderson 1990).

2. Food Not Bombs is a global movement that utilises various practices to recover, prepare, and serve food in public spaces frequented by the poor or homeless, or during protests.