Skipping (aka skip diving or dumpster diving) is the act of digging through bins behind shops, supermarkets or cafes, and rescuing things that would otherwise be thrown away and wasted. It's not exclusively about food, but the most common type of skipping is for waste food, usually thrown out by supermarkets.
I vaguely knew this existed, but didn't really know how it worked, or anyone who did it. Late last year I read a book called "Free" about a woman who lived for free in London for a year, and it covered her skipping activities in detail as this was how she fed herself for the year. Mark Boyle also talks about it in "The Moneyless Man", as does Tristram Stuart in "Waste", and so over the months I've become a lot more familiar with how it works, the legal implications and what to be aware of.
I've also been getting pretty interested in the whole issue of food waste through the Feeding the 5000 event and Tristram Stuarts book. I've heard descriptions by people of bins overflowing with food, but I figured it was about time I saw for myself. And so when I saw someone posting on a couchsurfing group about it, I jumped at the chance, and messaged someone on there who was offering to take people out skipping.
A mere four hours after my first message, I found myself cycling into the car park of a nearby supermarket with someone who had been a complete stranger half an hour before, armed with torches and bags. There were four large bins lining the wall of the supermarket, none of which were locked. Upon opening the first, we found an abundance of fruit shoots, yoghurt and cakes, with a few packets of cheese and some soup. The second and third were mostly rubbish, but the fourth hit jackpot again, with pears, grapes, cabbage and more bread than you could ever need. We took our time sorting through, loaded up our bags and tidied up after ourselves. Nobody gave us a second look.
Our second stop was outside a small supermarket on a main road, which was still open. This bin had a lock, but was easily opened with a triangular key you can get from a hardware shop for a pound. Inside we found ice cream. Haagan Dazs, Ben & Jerry's, Magnums, Soleros, Carte D'Or - the bin was full of it. Unfortunately a lot of it was quite melted and I wasn't willing to risk refreezing it (though the guy I was with took about 20 tubs). It was shocking though, just to see the sheer volume of waste. We didn't need to make a third stop as our bags were full already.
Even after reading about food waste for months, it still shocked me. When you're standing, staring at bins full of food that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with, you can't ignore the wastefulness of it. And according to the guy who I went with, this was nothing. If you can get further out of town, to bins that are less commonly skipped, you can fill cars with the stuff you find.
And it was a lot easier than I expected. Most bins aren't locked, and you generally don't get any trouble from staff or the police (nobody batted an eye at us, despite being in front of an open shop). Most of the food I brought back was completely fine, and some of it was still in date (one thing is in date til April 2013!). Although I did learn a lesson about checking food carefully before taking it - while I don't really follow best before dates, one of the things I'd picked up turned out to be several weeks out of date and a bit worse for wear on close inspection.
So I'm definitely up for going again - I can't see myself getting a large proportion of my food from there, but I definitely want to help reduce food waste, and if I get free food in the process, then it's win - win all round!
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