Store employee in shock after peeking deep into shop's dumpster: 'It's disgusting, honestly'

A Reddit post exposing the wasteful practices of a local eyewear store has sparked outrage online.

On the r/DumpsterDiving subreddit, a user posted a picture featuring over 200 pairs of glasses they discovered in the store's trash bins. 

The breakdown was as follows: "201 pairs of sunglasses, 4 pairs of reading glasses, 3 clip-on sunglasses lenses and one glasses case. Only one broken pair, all had tags and 1/4 of them were still in the plastic manufacturer packaging.. never even went out in the store."

Dumpster diving can have legal consequences, particularly if it is done by a private citizen on private grounds. But if you are safe and know your local laws, it can be very beneficial to society and your wallet. 

Stores frequently throw out overflow goods, but not always because the food is stale or the items are defective — it's frequently just a matter of making room for newer items that have been shipped more recently. 

But trash collectors make no distinction on that point. Whether or not that food or those items could be of use to someone, they're all going to be thrown in a landfill somewhere anyway, unnecessarily contributing to an already horrendous American trash problem.

Whether organic matter, plastic, or other materials, this waste will contribute to the production of planet-warming pollution.

According to the Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks, cited by the Environmental Protection Agency, "Landfills released an estimated 119.8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCO2e) of methane into the atmosphere in 2022; this represents 17.1 percent of the total U.S. anthropogenic methane emissions across all sectors."

Methane has 80 times the warming potential as carbon dioxide, per the Environmental Defense Fund, making it a huge factor in the rapid rate of rising global temperatures — which makes extreme weather conditions longer, stronger, and more frequent.

Do you worry about how much food you throw away? Definitely 😭 Sometimes 😢 Not really 😞 Never 🤷 Click your choice to see results and speak your mind.

Predictably, Redditors were shocked by the scope of this dumpster haul. 

One of the top comments read simply, "That's just crazy!" In response, the original poster wrote: "It really is…. Humans are way too…wasteful. It's disgusting, honestly. I'm doing what I can."

Another user put the problem in its proper global, historical context: "It seems like our entire global economy is based on producing way more than humans could ever consume with the need to destroy what isn't purchased. … The need to make a buck has trumped the human instinct to take care of each other and the environment. Unfettered capitalism is a bummer for people and [the] planet."

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