WASTE NOT, WANT NOT
HOW DANES ARE FIGHTING AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE ONE DUMPSTER AT A TIME
Written by Emma DiMaggio
Lulle Thomsen has spent the last five days working on demonstration plans and workshop outlines for Extinction Rebellion, the grassroots movement protesting climate change. Although she's actively involved in the organization, her efforts don't stop when she returns home at the end of the day.
On a brisk Wednesday night, Thomsen finds her fridge nearing empty. Despite being tired after poster-making for a climate demonstration, she dutifully grabs two canvas tote bags and slings one across each shoulder.
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A short bus ride later, she's in front of a grocery store, but she saunters straight past the main entrance. A sign dons the opening hours, 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Thomsen doesn't even look at her phone, which would have indicated that the time is 10:15 p.m. She seems unphased.
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After a tight right turn around the corner of the building, Thomsen reaches her true destination. Her groceries are right in front of her, in four large dumpsters.
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Rolling up her sleeves, she pops the first one open. She sighs. Unsurprisingly, it's full of garbage. Undeterred, she pops open the second dumpster.
Jackpot.
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Unlike the first, this one isn't full of garbage. In fact, it's full of food. She rummages through pounds of slightly bruised bananas, bags of pizzas and pastries, examining each item with a quick precision. Whenever she finds something she likes, she swiftly throws it into one of her bags.
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Every piece of food that Thomsen takes home is one less item that's incinerated. One less item in a landfill. One less item whose resources are wasted.
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About 20 minutes later, her bags are heavy with the weight of bell peppers, pastries and fruits. The dumpsters aren't even close to being empty, but she has all she needs for the next few days.
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She'll go home and stock up her fridge with her finds. Whenever it empties again, she'll come back to these dumpsters again. Less than 20 percent of her annual diet comes from anywhere else.
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This is the life of a dumpster diver, or, in Danish, skralder.
Photo by Emma DiMaggio
Dumpsters can hold more than meets the eye, and skraldere communities take advantage of the opportunity to reduce their carbon footprint.
explore the issue
How does food waste contribute to climate change?
When food is thrown in the garbage, the food itself isn’t the only thing being wasted.
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The farmers who grew the crops have used water, land, and energy to harvest the crops. Manufacturers have used gas transporting the crops. Stores have used resources stocking and pricing items, and then used those same resources again when taking them off the shelves and throwing them away. After that, garbage disposal itself takes up resources of its own.
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By taking edible food out of the dumpster, skraldere are preventing this waste of these resources and simultaneously helping reduce their individual waste.
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"I've always been environmentally active. Every time I go [dumpster diving], it's always full," nursing student Sebastian Liebach said. "There's so much food. It's extreme sometimes. I don't think I've ever emptied a dumpster."
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Infographic by Emma DiMaggio
A 2017 report from the Ministry of Environment and Food of Denmark stated that the Danish food supply chain produces about 716,000 tonnes of avoidable food waste per year.
The same report notes that the Danish food production sector is the industrial sector with the largest greenhouse gas emissions after housing.
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In total, the line of production and destruction of food adds up to a substantial amount of wasted resources, contributing to increased carbon emissions.
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Given these facts, dumpster divers, or "skraldere," are the last line of defense against food waste in the commercial sector.
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163,000 tonnes
The total amount of avoidable food waste in the Danish wholesale and retail sector per year. This represents 23 percent of all avoidable food waste in Denmark.
2 million tonnes
The amount of greenhouse gases that could be saved per year assuming that 100 percent of avoidable food waste is prevented.
770,00 tonnes
The amount of CO2 production from food waste is equivalent to the environmental impact of extracting and burning this much coal.
616,000 tonnes
The total amount of avoidable food waste in the Danish supply chain per year. This number includes processing, food service, households, wholesale and retail.
Information obtained from the Ministry of Environment and Food of Denmark, 2017 "Food Waste Prevention in Denmark" report
Infographic by Emma DiMaggio
Who are skraldere?
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Skraldere are communities of Danes who share their tips and tricks for collecting food from dumpsters, popularly via Facebook.
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In Denmark alone, 20,000 people are members of Skraldere Facebook groups spanning across the entire country.
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As illustrated by movements like Extinction Rebellion, the awareness of the impacts of climate change seem to be increasing.
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"In this election we're having right now, a lot of politicians have begun to answer the green question," university student Marcus Holst said. "Usually they only talk about the economy and immigration, but they've started to talk about the environment."
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Holst believes this climate awareness will translate over to awareness of food waste.
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"If they were to regulate food waste, to what extent we should be able to throw out food, it could cut down the amount tremendously," Holst said. "It's just about making good laws and enforcing them."
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In a study done by the Danish Centre for Food and Agriculture, 59 percent of those surveyed were motivated to reduce their food waste for the sake of improving the environment.
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Skraldere facebook groups
hover over the image to see the most popular groups
937
865
1,190
1,152
4,620
423
8,144
Infographic by Emma DiMaggio/ Map data from OpenStreetMap
a day in the life of an aarhus skralder
Marcus holst and his roommate nicolas tabone started dumpster diving just a month ago. now, more than 90 percent of their diet comes from dumpsters.
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Nicolas reaches into their first bin of the day. Fortunately, this one is almost completely full of produce.
Nicolas stacks up all the food they found in just one dumpster. When fruits or vegetables are close to their expiry date, he says they freeze them and use them in smoothies.
Food isn't the only kind of waste found in dumpsters. Here, Marcus and Nicolas proudly hold up a small bouquet of roses they've found in a bin.
Nicolas reaches into their first bin of the day. Fortunately, this one is almost completely full of produce.
Photos by Emma DiMaggio
What exactly is food waste?
The definition of food waste as a whole is tricky to specify. This might explain why organizations like the United Nations haven’t yet come up with a concrete definition for food waste, according to a spokesperson from Statistics Denmark.
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A lack of definition means that resources like Statistics Denmark can’t publish any data on food waste. As of now, their section for sustainable development goals on food waste is empty.
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Nevertheless, excessive food waste is apparent. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, an estimated one third of all food produced globally is lost or goes to waste.
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According to the European Commission, “food” is anything meant for human consumption along the entire food supply chain. But their definition of food also includes inedible parts that aren’t separated from the edible parts when the food was produced. This includes things like bones attached to meat or vegetable stems that are usually cut off and thrown away.
examples of food waste:
inedible parts of fruits and vegetables that are usually cut off and thrown away.
bones attached to meat that are sold as a single item.
pastries that are fresh baked daily and must be thrown away at the end of each day.
hover over the images to see what kinds of food waste they've found
Mikael Miehs Andersen
Expert Dumpster Diver
Photos courtesy of Mikael Miehs Andersen
Lotte Lucerne
Pedagogue
Photos courtesy of Lotte Lucerne
Why is edible food thrown away?
When people think of food waste, images of rotten vegetables or moldy bread may come to mind. Dumpster divers face stigma for eating food that's seen as "unfit for consumption."
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However, in looking into the garbage bins of popular Danish grocers, dumpster divers see a reality that is starkly different.
hover over the images to read their stories
Marcus Holst
Linguistics Student
Most people might find it disgusting, but once you know what it’s really like, I don’t think they would have that same opinion. It’s not trashy at all. If something is ripped open and still fine, it gets thrown out. It’s still perfectly good food that you could buy in the store, it just happened to be thrown out.
Photo courtesy of Marcus Holt
Sebastian Liebach
Nursing Student
It started economically, but I’ve always been very environmentally active. I think a lot of people find it really disgusting. They see these people going into dumpsters, and they know how bad they smell. They think it’s just a bacteria haven, but I have yet to hear about people getting sick from dumpster diving.
Photo courtesy of Sebastian Liebach
Lulle Thomsen
Activist
I found about 200 cans of organic tomatoes. I have an app that tells me when something is recalled. The reason they were thrown out was because they weren't actually organic, but you could still eat them. It's so crazy. That's perfectly fine food.
Photo courtesy of Lulle Thomsen
But dumpsters aren't the only place where food waste ends up.
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Some organizations, like the surplus store WeFood, accept donations from commercial grocers and wholesalers that would otherwise become food waste.
Christina Pedersen is a journalist for DanChurchAid, which owns and operates the surplus grocery store WeFood.
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Last year, WeFood distributed 173 tonnes of donated food. She said that each donation has its own story.
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Loss of license
In one case, a British chocolate distributor lost his license to sell to Danish supermarkets. He was left with a warehouse full of chocolates with a long shelf life and a high retail value. Unable to sell the chocolates, he donated the entire shipment to WeFood.
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Shipment malfunction
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In another case, a grocer in Copenhagen had ordered four large pallets of melons. The boxes were meant to have 10 melons per box. However, when the shipment arrived, each box only had 9 melons. Instead of dealing with the costly shipping prices of returning the melons, the distributor sent the grocer four new pallets.
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The four remaining pallets went straight to WeFood.
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Cosmetic Problems
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At the distribution center, large crates are sometimes dropped. Pedersen explained that if a bottle of olive oil breaks in a box of perfectly fine bottles, the distributor donates the entire box to WeFood. After the bottles are cleaned, they're exactly the same as the bottles in a typical grocer. If they hadn't been donated, they'd end up in the garbage.
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"If something was ripped open and still fine, it gets thrown out," Holst said. "It's still perfectly good food that you could buy in the store, it just happened to be thrown out."
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Grocers throw away food with scratched labels and bent packaging. Edible vegetables with deformities or cosmetic problems meet the same fate.
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christina pedersen
wefood spokesperson
Listen here
Photo courtesy of Christina Pedersen
Despite their efforts, and WeFood's plans to open another two locations later this year, Pedersen emphasizes that nonprofits cannot solve the problem on their own.
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"You have to find different ways of eliminating food waste on a higher level," Pedersen said. "An organization like [WeFood] cannot do it alone. It has to be at an EU or UN level."
What has been done to reduce food waste in the past?
In 2015, the United Nations met for a summit that set forth a landmark plan for the future of 193 participating countries. The goals laid out in that summit are now known as the the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
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Most notable in this plan is goal 12.3, which focused specifically on food waste.
United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 12.3
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By 2030, halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses.
In terms of food waste reduction, this UN goal represents the most recent and most widespread action to reduce food waste.
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However, its popularity should not overshadow previous efforts by European policy makers. In fact, FUSIONS, an EU funded program to optimize waste prevention, created a report in 2015 outlining all EU legislation and policies with implications on food waste.
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Their report listed 53 different regulations, resolutions, directives and communications from the EU spanning all the way back to 1985.
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29
Regulations
10
directives
3
decisions
10
communications
1
parliament
resolution
Despite these actions, food waste in the EU still lies at 88 million tonnes per year, according to information from the European Parliamentary Research Service.
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What does the future hold?
Last month, the European Union held its sixth EU Platform on Food Losses and Food Waste, reaffirming its goal to halve food waste by 2030.
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During the same month, the European Commission adopted the Delegated Act, which intends to implement an overarching food waste methodology.
In short, they're hoping to create an effective system for measuring food waste across all Member States. The system will also hold Member States accountable for reporting their findings to the EU. This way, the EU will be able to keep track of how close, or far, they are away from meeting their food waste reduction goals.
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It also sets forth a concrete definition for "food waste" to make sure that data can be measured consistently across Member States.
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Jyrki Katainen is the European Commission vice president for jobs, growth, investment and competitiveness. During the presentation of the Delegated Act, he emphasized the importance of gaining this data.
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"In food waste, as in life, what gets measured, gets managed," Katainen said. "To be able to implement effective national food waste prevention programmes and promote circularity in the food chain, we need to know where, what, how much and why we are losing food resources."
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Though the act is still subject to scrutiny by co-legislators, its scheduled to be sent to the European Parliament and European Council by the end of July, according to an EU Commission spokesperson.
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Until now, Member States have been able to measure their food waste on a voluntary basis, leading to multi-year gaps in data and insufficient measuring processes. If the act is implemented, it will represent the first concrete, widespread means of measuring food waste across Europe.
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Until then, skraldere groups will continue to do their part, however small, to reduce food waste and minimize their carbon footprints.
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"I know there are a lot of countries where it's a lot worse, but it's still a problem here in Denmark," Thomsen said. "I still have moments where I look down in a dumpster and I see what's been thrown out and think, 'Wow, this is really crazy.' I was really surprised [when I started dumpster diving six years ago], and I still am."
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