Urban foraging is difficult, risky, and rewarding. The number one thing that we have to impress on you is to check whether or not it is legal where you are! Urban foraging can be unhealthy, especially if you’re foraging for food, so please take precautions, and make sure to triple check that it is legal where you are.
If foraging is legal where you are, one of the safest ways to go about it is to meet up with other freegans out there! They can lead ‘trash tours’, where experienced freegans will take you to known spots for safe food where they either have a contact on the inside (someone who will pass them the items directly so they don’t actually go in the bin), or know that the disposal place is sanitary. Here is a link to the biggest freegan society in the world, Freegan.Info, who conduct trash tours.
There are safer ways to urban forage. In places that dumpster diving is legal, freegans often seek out certain things that they want. Checking dumpsters near bookshops would result in getting books, dumpsters near a boutique would have clothes and makeup, and ones near a bike shop would have gear parts.
If urban foraging is illegal where you live, don’t worry — it’s mainly for your own safety, and we definitely do not advocate breaking the law. There are much safer alternatives to dumpster diving, ones that work around legal parameters, too!
There are many food sharing apps, like TooGoodToGo, or Olio, that encourage taking leftover food from corporations. They will let you know when the food is ready for collection, and will give it to you free of charge! Tailors and butchers are also known to give away off cuts, or wonky cuts, for free, if you just asked them. Additionally, Carousell has a ‘free’ setting, so you can look for items that people are just giving away. These are often things like baby clothes, or textbooks that have been written on and aren’t worth reselling, or fan items that would really only be of value to people in the know — there are loads of people giving away free BTS merchandise. More often than not you can find furniture on here, as people who are desperate to shift things before they move will just give them away as a Hail Mary.
Photo by Tomáš Hustoles from Burst.
