A pregnant girl’s experience from living out of “trash”

Hi everyone!  

What is trash? In a way it is something individual. Who does not know the situation, that you do not want to throw away a thing which for other people is worthless. But I am sure that in this article I can show you things, most of you would agree are no trash! Maybe some of you already worked in a supermarket and had to throw away great stuff every day, for me that is horrible.  

I am a 24 years old student and what I want to write about is “dumpstering” or “containering”, which is going to trash bins of supermarkets finding excellent groceries.  What do you need to do this? First of all, you need to get access to the trash bins. I live in Austria and here you can get a key online to come inside most of the trash rooms here. It is kind of a general key.  After getting the key, find good spots near your house where to go “shopping”. And now, let’s take action.  Grab a pair of gloves, some bags or a backpack and let the adventure begin.  The first time I went “dumpstering” I was super nervous! What if someone sees you? What will you tell people you are doing? Can you get arrested? =D (I hope I will not get in trouble because of this post :P) Till now, thank God, nothing happened and I never needed to explain anything.  Also this jumpiness gives you a certain kick –haha-. Once you are inside the trash room you forget about those thoughts anyway. The smell is awful and of course you need rummage inside the bins. Especially as an expectant mother you really have to brace yourself to not puke inside. Uagh, you think? Right =D but then, there is this moment, where you find your favorite yogurt – the expensive one! And it only expired today! 

           

Do you throw away everything that just expired in your fridge? I don’t think so. In this context I love to say: “It is best before…, not certainly killing after… “ You find the next cool thing, and the next one, and there you end up having things you would never buy because they are too expensive or whatever. Additionally, you just feel great when calculating how much value/money you have in your cupboards and fridge. And for me the absolute coolest thing is, that you saved this awesome bananas, peaches,… from being thrown away for no reason! 

Some people worked really hard for bringing our food to the supermarket, just for being trash? Once I found three pineapples, eight glasses of organic pesto, two kilos of potatoes, five kilos of vacuum packaged chicken and six packages of the best, still durable Swiss cheese (besides a lot of other stuff). Do you know what this would have cost? I estimated it around 80 euros and that on one day.  It is a great feeling sitting at home, enjoying whatever you need to live and being a food saver! You kind of get addicted to the surprises, because you never know what is waiting for you there today! And of course the amount of money you save incredibly helps you to survive as a student.

                                                      

Telling people about this brings very interesting reactions, opinions and insights- again especially when you are pregnant. I would love to hear about yours!