With multiple stores caught trashing unsold products, dumpster diving has become an increasingly lucrative opportunity for thrifty consumers.
One dumpster diver shared their recent findings at a CVS in the r/DumpsterDiving subreddit, a forum filled with advice, information, and first-hand accounts about trash treasures.
A series of photos displayed a variety of unopened cookies, vitamins, probiotics, baby items, food products, and more, all looking good as new and untouched.
"Dumpster was overflowing with bags of merchandise … Had to leave the rest due to my trunk being completely full," the dumpster diver explained beneath his post.
While dumpster diving is typically sluffed off as "gross," communities like r/DumpsterDiving are demonstrating to more and more people just how much is being thrown away each day and how beneficial the effort can be — not only personally but also for the environment.
Excess inventory is a growing problem valued at more than $250 billion in the United States alone. It's estimated that 21 billion pounds of textiles are thrown out every year. An estimated 30% of the food in American grocery stores ends up being thrown away as retail stores generate about 16 billion pounds of food waste each year.
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Certain organizations and companies are doing their part to help. Creating more awareness is always key. Any little thing we can do that keeps less in the landfill is a great success. As seen above, everyone's definition of trash is different.
A word of advice — before you head out on a 2 a.m. hunt, be aware that while dumpster diving is legal in all 50 states, there are usually local trespassing regulations to abide by.
While someone warned that there could be a very good reason these items were tossed, the original poster agreed, saying, "Absolutely and that's why using common sense when picking is needed. Doubled packed foods or air/water tight packaging is always a good sign, but you want to look over each item individually and clean them."
One user simply said, "Thank you for saving food waste."
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