Recipes for Disaster: an anarchist cookbook

Certain emergencies make dumpstering a special event. When a grocery store's power goes out for any length of time, they are required to throw out all refrigerated perishables! My first dumpster diving experience coincided with just such an emergency. I was lying on my bed reading a 'zine about dumpster diving, skeptical but ready to conduct my own investigation, when the power went out. Unable to continue reading, I puttered about in the dark, until finally I hopped on my bike and rode down to the nearest Food Lion. Picture, if you will, the young skeptic rounding the corner to see a construction-size dumpster?bigger than my house at the time!?filled to overflowing with the entire cold food section ... all still frozen! After three hours of ferrying food back and forth imtil my house could fit no more, there was a litde dent in Mt. Food into which I tossed the last of my misgivings.

Dumpster Diuing

Now that place and time are covered, what's left is technique. No big deal. There are a Technique few pointers that can increase your joy and prosperity; the subtleties you will learn as you go. Trust your gut, both in terms of where to go and what to take. In the case of food, believe it or not, you have built-in faculties for determining what is safe and what is not: smell, intuition, deduction. How do you think your hunter/gatherer ancestors survived.^ These?along with the immune system?get dull in a world that's too sterile, but they sharpen up quickly. After a lengthy career, I stiU have never known a dumpster diver to get sick from dumpstered food (except that hilarious scene in Evasion where the author deliberately eats moldy bread). Of course there are stories, just like there are stories of razor-bladed apples being given out on Halloween?be leery of the ways sub-urban legends reprimand and warn. People get sick all the time, but if any food should be blamed, it's that sugary, plastic-wrapped trash they buy off the shelves.

Be a sneak. It serves the dumpster diver to go unseen and unnoticed. 1 make my rounds after store hours and try to leave the dumpster in better condition than I found it. This way my gathering causes no stress for employees who, quite reasonably, get upset if they have to clean up around a dumpster. If no mess resufts, your patronage is actually a service, since businesses pay for their waste by weight and frequency of pick up. Given all that, if the store becomes openly hostile you have the right to get pissed off and fight back. If they put a padlock on the dumpster, cut it off with boft cutters and replace it with your own. If you have yet to dumpster a nice pair of bolt cutters, squeeze a tube of superglue into the keyhole. If they replace it with a compacter, push a blanket soaked in gasoline under it and light it on fire. Um, for entertainment purposes only, you know.

Another pointer?never be afraid to get inside that dumpster. The dumpster gods do not smile on window shoppers. Get in there, dig holes, open bags, dump out boxes, be persistent. Just because a business slips up and puts a few layers of bona fide trash

Dumpster Dii^ing

Spirituality

Making Peace with Your Inner Raccoon

Dumpster Dhing 224

in the dumpster doesn't mean they are against putting useful stuff in there too. All the same, watch out for "dumpster juice"?sometimes you just don't need to go any deeper. Wearing sturdy, waterproof, protective shoes won't hurt, either

What to wear? Dumpsters are mostly dark green, so whatever goes with that vvdll do you well. Some friends in Indianapolis, masters of the craft, dive in furry raccoon suits. That's something to work up to. For starters, get a headlamp?it will free up your hands in the dark?and a nice bag or backpack to fill wnth loot.

The dumpster spirits deserve respect?^keep them appeased. If you find something useful, take it. Worst case, you can set it by the road and watch as it gets scooped up by some grateful soul. If you begin to feel extraordinarily looked after, it's time to start a food Not Bombs {pg. 248) or a free store. Also, and most important, recognize that the dumpster may know more about your ftiture than you do. Last week, in the middle of a weeks-long drought, I found an umbrella. Today I've got to go to the bus station, and it's been raining torrentially since I woke up.