The other day, a profoundly middle-class friend collapsed in self-righteous disgust when I told him this story. I’m curious to see what our readers think.
A few years ago, another friend used to root through the bins behind shops and restaurants in Dublin for perfectly good, thrown out food. Everything she took was clean, packaged, or easily washable. She then distributed it to the homeless and gave it to crowds at anti-war marches, crying “Food, not Bombs!” As she pointed out, it would otherwise have rotted in landfill and filled the atmosphere with poisonous methane.
About eight years ago, I used to run a fancy take-away food shop for two evenings a week, and I’d sneak out the day’s leftovers to two homeless visitors. I say sneak, because I’m pretty sure my boss would have fired me on the spot if she’d seen this. She saw the bin was seen as a more appropriate destination.
What do you think about salvaged food? And would you eat from a skip under any circumstances?